This Gentle Daughter of Oblivion
by robinwitch1
Summary: A love-struck sorcerer attempts to bring his beloved permanently into the human world but finds that he cannot complete the task, leaving her in an ambiguous and dangerous situation. How much is he willing to sacrifice to ensure her safety and happiness? And what consequences will his decision have?
1. Part One: Pariah Abbey, 2E 594

_**This Gentle Daughter of Oblivion**_

_Though I am old with wandering  
><em>_Through hollow lands and hilly lands,  
><em>_I will find out where she has gone,  
><em>_And kiss her lips and take her hands;  
><em>_And walk among long dappled grass,  
><em>_And pluck till time and times are done  
><em>_The silver apples of the moon,  
><em>_The golden apples of the sun._

(William Butler Yeats, "The song of wandering Aengus")

**Part One: Pariah Abbey, 2E 594**

No one was paying much notice at first, so there may have been earlier incidents, but the first clear sign of something new in the skies around Pariah Abbey came in the summer of 2E 594. The person at the center of this incident, who was also the one who reported it and the only surviving witness, was a young woman living in the area, named Mirille Pariel. She lived outside Wayrest, but was employed on the Wayrest docks, and would often start work very early in the day so that she could take an extended break to avoid the heat of noon and early afternoon.

On the day in question, when she was going from her parents' home to her workplace, a long walk but one that should have been safe in these days of peace, she was accosted by a fellow-worker whom she had laughed off when he had declared his passion for her several weeks previously. The spurned suitor, not a very stable person at the best of times, brooded over his rejection until he convinced himself that he was justified in seeking revenge. Knowing her habit of coming to work in the very early morning, when no one else was likely to be about, he ambushed her on a deserted stretch of road and took her captive.

What exactly the fellow intended to do will never be known. Harassment? Rape? Murder? The second would probably have entailed the third, unless the attacker was so deluded as to have thought that Mirille could be terrified into silence. Her clothing was partially torn off, so it would seem to have been planned as a sexual assault, a humiliation, at the very least.

In the event, his plans proved irrelevant, since Mirille broke free and escaped into the gray light of dawn, and later that morning the attacker was found dead with deep slashes in his head, neck, and stomach. All Mirelle could remember was his being knocked away from her by a savage blow from above, and a dim grey shape that seemed to be that of a large bird. Everything else was lost in the confusion. The wounds on the dead man were very similar to those left by a harpy attack, but the only harpies that remain in the area live a long distance away and are too prudent to wander far from their native cliffs. Moreover, the attack had been completely silent – harpies are noisy, especially when excited – and one of the attacked had been slashed to death, while the other had not received a scratch.

Deeply shocked by the experience, and horrified at what had happened to the attacker, even though he had brought it on himself, Mirille decided to make the short trip to Pariah Abbey and pray at the shrine of Azura. Why she was drawn to the Abbey, she could not say. She had never visited the place, and knew nothing of what went on there. Her family was not religious at all, and although she had seen the priests and nuns from the abbey often enough, she had never had the occasion to speak to one. But ever since the attack, she had dreamed of the Lady of Roses every night.

Mirille arrived at the Abbey at noon, a beautiful end of summer day with a cloudless sky. No sound came from the buildings, and there seemed to be no one about. She felt a bit foolish. Her mother had questioned her wisdom in visiting a shrine to the Queen of Dusk and Dawn at a time when both Dusk and Dawn had been banished by the sun, but Mirille, for obvious reasons, did not like to take the chance of traveling in the half-light.

She pushed open the door of the chapel and stepped timidly inside. It looked like any other house of worship she had ever seen, except for the striking beauty of the statue that dominated the apse at the far end of the chapel: the Lady herself, Queen of Dusk and Dawn. Half-fascinated, half-terrified, she crept up to the statue, intending to place her offering, a bouquet of flowers and a few other simple things, and leave without delay.

A shape moved in the warm darkness to her left, and Mirille froze. For a moment, she panicked, as if she were under attack again. However, the mysterious stranger was a servant of Azura, dressed in a hooded robe. On closer inspection, he proved to be an old Orc, very old, she guessed. This again startled Mirille, though it did not frighten her; it was just that Orcs were not very famous for their spiritual qualities. In fact, this was the first Orc cleric Mirille had ever met.

"Welcome to our humble shrine to the Queen of Dusk and Dawn. I am Abbot Durak. What brings you here, daughter?"

Mirille was too shy to speak at first. She merely showed the Abbot the wreath and flowers that she had brought, and looked toward the foot of the statue of Azura. The abbot took the offerings, and examined them carefully, one by one. Then he smiled.

"Not at all an orthodox gift for the Lady of Roses, but that is good. My Lady has always valued sincerity over the sort of glib perfection that some people mistake for reverence. You are sincere. I am sure this will please her. But again, what brought you here, not a member of the regular congregation, on perhaps your first visit to this chapel? You need not answer if you do not wish to. But perhaps I can be of more service to you if I know more."

Mirille nodded. She sat down on one of the benches, her eyes on the floor, and hesitantly at first, told the story of the attack, her unexpected and bloody rescue, and the dreams of the Queen of Dusk and Dawn that she had had every night after. When she finished, she looked up for the first time and saw that the abbot was listening with his eyes half-closed, nodding his head as if he were listening to a familiar tune. She asked him, in a soft voice,

"Do you know what it was that saved me? Was it a creature of your Lady's? It came at her time, the early dawn. And it was silent, and saved me from being shamed, or worse. Was it one of Her servants?"

Abbot Durak did not answer at once. He turned and walked over to the foot of the statue and laid Mirille's offerings at its base, directly below the Dreamshard. He looked up at the image for a moment, as if seeking confirmation or permission, and then turned back to Mirille.

"The name of your rescuer is Rielle, the Beautiful One. Rielle was once a fetch, a magical projection modeled after one of the lesser daedra, a nameless servant to Our Lady, at her side in Moonshadow, Our Lady's plane of Oblivion. Learning how to call these up is standard training for a student of magic aspiring to master sorcery. But now, this one has a name of her own. She has become..."

He hesitated a moment.

"...something else. A changed thing. But not, as you have learned, an evil thing. I am not surprised that she has turned to watching over the helpless, and a betrayal of love would make her particularly angry. Because of her past, you see. She serves Our Lady still, but...in her own ways. As do many of those who honor Her."

"I don't understand," Mirille said, slowly. "I suppose if there are good Daedric Princes, there can be good daedra, or fetches, or whatever, but why did one choose to come to my aid?"

Abbot Durak shook his head. "Who can say? No mortal knows or will ever know the true extent of Our Lady's powers, or which of those powers, to what extent, she chose to gift to Rielle. I can only guess that your pain and terror, and your attacker's lust and hatred, were somehow sensed by her, when she was nearby, and so she acted. Have there been no stories recently of a large creature with bat-like wings seen flying in the dusk or dawn skies?"

Mirille replied, "Not that I have heard. Seamen are always spreading strange tales, of course, but there's been nothing like that, at least nothing that I have heard."

"That's just as well," Abbot Durak said, and smiled. "I don't need the whole of the area at my door to ask what I know. And in any case, I don't know everything concerning this. Only Our Lady does..."

His voice trailed off, and when he spoke again his tone was more serious, "...and it may well be a sensitive topic with her, one we best stay away from. Our Lady is tolerant and gracious, but all toleration has its limits."

Mirille smiled. She liked Abbot Durak, even though he had confused her quite a bit.

"If it's like that, I suppose I don't need to know the whole story," she said firmly. "It's enough that I have brought my thanks to the right place."

Mirille got up, and the two walked slowly to the chapel door.

"Come back if you wish in a week or so," Abbot Durak said as he opened the door for her. "I will ask Our Lady's counsel, and try to discover what I can tell you, and what must be left silent."

"Thank you, Abbot. I may be back. But in any case, peace to you and your Abbey. May your blessed work prosper."

The Abbot watched her walk to the gate in the outer wall and pass through, and then turned and closed the door against the bright light of early afternoon. Mirille would not return, he knew. For her, it was an episode in her life best forgotten, brought to a formal close by the giving of thanks to the Power that had saved her. For himself...

_So their great love has returned to keep watch over others, here near where their earthly lives ended_, he thought, and looked at Azura's image in the colored lights of the windows, now struck full by the afternoon sun. _They were right to have faith in You, and my doubts and fears were not justified. I have been too severe. Please forgive Your servant. Your mercy has always been greater than I have ever dared to anticipate._


	2. Part Two: Pariah Abbey, 2E 593

**Part Two: Pariah Abbey, 2E 593**

Six months earlier, the five hundred and ninety-third year of the Second Era had been howling itself to an end in a bitter storm of snow and ice, and Abbot Durak was entertaining unexpected but welcome guests.

"A foul winter, to be sure," the Abbot said. "The king is gracious to remember us, and send you to us to deliver us firewood. We were, to tell the truth, running a bit low."

The imperial messenger nodded. He had been somewhat apprehensive about this sudden mid-winter mission to a nest of Daedra-worshippers, but the Chamberlain had assured him that they were perfectly harmless. Besides, they stood _very_ high in the King's favor, the Chamberlain had added, with a decided emphasis on the 'very.'

He'd been right about the harmless, the messenger thought. Everything here seemed normal enough, and the messenger decided he had perhaps been a bit hasty in his judgment of those who chose to turn towards Oblivion.

"His Majesty would rather err on the side of too much than of too little," he answered the Abbot. "You represent powerful and benevolent forces that must not be forgotten in these days of peace. And his Majesty has always been meticulous in the service of his friends."

Abbot Durak nodded in reply and then stood up. "I hope you can excuse me for a time," he said. "I have something I must see to involving love and pride and a hasty young man I do not wish to see come to grief." He smiled. "You are all welcome to stay the night. The weather is dreadful outside, and we have plenty to eat. The guest-house is a little way down the road to the left, and there is already someone there to light the fires and see that everything is in order. Your horses have been fed and stabled. The storm will have blown itself out by morning."

The imperial messenger had not been looking forward to the journey home over dark and slippery roads in a snowstorm, so this invitation was a very welcome surprise. His opinion of Daedra-worshippers rose another notch.

"Thank you for your offer. We'll be glad to take advantage of it. And good luck with your young man."

The Abbot made a wry face. "I may need it," he said. "Good night, then."

-o-o-o-

"There are many ways to mock a deity, to indicate disrespect," the Abbot said, speaking as though the matter were purely theoretical. "Some would be all but unnoticed by human eyes. Some might be completely unintentional. But still unmistakable to those whose perceptions are so much more subtle than ours. And an unintentional slight might well be as wounding as a deliberate insult, if it fell on a sensitive spot."

He coughed briefly, and then continued.

"I did not, and do not, think that your request will seriously offend Her, but on the other hand I doubt if She will grant it. I even wonder whether She _could_ grant it even if She truly wished to. This is where the danger lies. You are touching on one of Her weaknesses, though it is common to all the Daedric Lords and not a particular flaw of Her own. Solving your problem seems to demand an ability that has been put beyond the reach of any of the Lords, no doubt for good reason. You can imagine what Dagon or Molag Bal, or Hircine, or Sheogorath, or even Sanguine might have done with it. Our Lady, in her sincere and loving care for us, is perhaps the only one of the Lords who might have been trusted with this power. But again, She was passed over. Did this leave a wound? It _may_ have, and if it did, you _may_ be inviting a reaction quite the reverse of what you hope for."

Abbot Durak was standing in the main hall of the chapel, before the image of the Lady of Roses. He was speaking to an audience of two. The first was an intense young man, paler than even the winter months or his own Breton ancestry fully justified, dressed in a very conservative version of a magic user's garb. His name was Hernanuel Lelault. His eyes never left the Abbot, and he seemed to be listening with complete attention. The second was the young man's fetch, an unusually large Twilight Matriarch perched on a bench behind him, with its huge wings folded well forward so that they brushed him on either side, almost enveloping him. Most of the time, it looked not forward at the Abbot as he spoke, but down at its master, a faint smile on its face. Once or twice it absent-mindedly began to hum, in the tone-deaf manner of its kind, but checked itself instantly out of respect for Abbot Durak.

There was a long silence after the Abbot finished speaking, and he noticed that the eyes of both the young man and his fetch had turned upward, towards the calm impassive face of the Queen of Dusk and Dawn looking out over him from behind. Finally, Hernanuel replied, as much to Azura as to Abbot Durak.

"If our petition _appears_ impudent or mocking, if it _seems_ to be lacking in proper respect, I will bear the consequences without complaint. But I do not plan to do anything as stupid as the Dwemer sage Nchylbar is said to have done. He set a trap for the Queen of Dusk and Dawn, with the intention of displaying to all the limitations of her power, and so humiliating her in front of an audience. I am simply asking for her aid, if she can indeed aid us. If she cannot, I do not intend to reproach her with her inability, or withdraw any part of my faith in her divinity. There are things that are possible, and things that are not, and our request is on the border between the two. We do not judge; we hope."

Abbot Durak nodded. He knew the story that Hernanuel was referring to, "Azura and the Box," from Marobar Sul's semi-fictional _Ancient Tales of the Dwemer._ It concerned Nchylbar. an arrogant Dwemer scholar, and his friend, a Chimer priest who should have known better, a tale in which Azura's feelings had been soothed by flattery and mildness and the apparently trivial task of determining what was in a closed box. Nchylbar had distracted the Lady of Roses and tricked her by removing the flower that had been within the box while her attention was elsewhere. Such a deliberate and provocative deception was certainly not what Hernanuel intended. But still...

"In any case, we do not _know_ that it is beyond Her powers," Hernanuel added.

"No. But I am almost sure that it will be. The Daedric Princes are forbidden to create, and what you seek is something new, never done before, to my knowledge. And you can hardly present it as your discovery, and yourself as the prime mover, the most important party, without seeming to put yourself ahead of Our Lady, with Her no more than your servant. That, I am sure, she would never tolerate."

"Nor would I dare do anything that stupid."

"Very well," the Abbot said, in a resigned voice. "And you need to do it as soon as possible, you say."

"At dawn. I am afraid the present situation is insupportable. I hardly dare sleep any more, since if I lose my focus and the spell falters for any length of time, Rielle will discorporate. I can summon her again, easily enough, but she has become terrified of being separated from the mortal plane, even for a short time. I have done all that I can, but my own arts are sufficient only to bring her partially out of her world to ours. She needs some way to finish the journey. We could be together then, for as long or as short a period as fate permits. I hope at least for some quiet time, free from fear, to repay her devotion. She has trusted me absolutely, you see. I owe her this."

"I am glad you are so responsible. I only fear that you are trying to do the impossible." Then Abbot Durak smiled. "Rielle...that's 'beautiful' in the ancient elven tongue, isn't it? The same _rielle_ as in Tamriel, 'Dawn's Beauty,' our home. She _is_ a beauty. It's a good name for her."

When Rielle heard herself being praised, she chattered happily in a low voice, smiled at the Abbot, and then nuzzled the top of Hernanual's head, enfolding him completely in her wings. The two snuggled for a moment, and then Rielle lowered her wings again so that her master could address the Abbot.

"Do you find it strange, that two creatures so different, living in different worlds, even, should become so close? That love can reach so far and still bind so tightly?"

Abbot Durak laughed and shook his head.

"No, no, not at all. That's the _least_ surprising thing about this whole strange affair. I once knew an Argonian who was married to a Redguard woman, and a very devoted couple they were, too. They had a whole clutch of brown children who could swim like fishes and were proud of both sides of their mixed heritage. I asked the Argonian a question something like that one day, and his reply was, 'Love doesn't ask permission, you know. And it's the strongest current in the whole River. Where it comes from, no one knows, and where it will take you, no one can predict, but nothing but misery comes from trying to swim against it.'

"And he was right. Such is true of love in all its forms. I have loved my Abbey and my service to Our Lady, even though in the beginning, everyone I knew thought I was crazy or contemptible. An Orc to be a priest serving Azura? What was wrong with Malacath? my family asked. I could only tell them that that was not my way, and then some of them declared that Malacath would surely strike me down for my impudence and betrayal. Well, He didn't. I think He understands why I chose to take the path that I did. He has walked some hard paths alone Himself."

There was a long silence after that, with all three lost in their own thoughts. Finally Hernanual stood up and made a formal bow to the Abbot, with Rielle bobbing her head beside him.

"We may never see each other again, even if this venture goes well," Hernanual said in a low voice. "This is my last chance to express my thanks for allowing me to make my petition in this sacred place, where Our Lady may hear me the more clearly."

Abbot Durak returned the bow, but remained silent afterward, a slight frown on his face. Worried, Hernanual inquired if there was anything wrong. The Abbot did not respond for a moment, and then he smiled to himself, as if he had sought and found the solution for some dilemma.

"Not wrong. But there is one last thing that remains to be done," the Abbot began. He turned and walked the few steps to the foot of Azura's statue, stopped, and looked toward them again. "Come over here. If you could kneel for a moment, side by side, right here..."

The two came before the Abbot and knelt. Rielle was unaccustomed to kneeling, and a little unsteady, but she supported herself by leaning against Hernanual.

Abbot Durak cleared his throat and began, "We don't often do this in our Lady's name, but since there is not enough time to engage the services of a priest of Mara...I think I can remember everything...

"In the name of Azura, Lady of Roses, Queen of Dusk and Dawn, whose power protects and enfolds us, and in the name of all the Powers above and below, light and dark, small and great, mortal and immortal..."

The Abbot stretched out his left arm and laid his hand on Rielle's head, "Do you, Rielle, being of sound mind and sufficient age, with no impediment of law or custom, take this mortal human, Hernanual Lelaut, a Breton of good family, as your lawful wedded husband, to love and be loved by, serve and be served by, in life and in death, to the end of the world?"

Rielle nodded frantically and choked out a few high-pitched sounds that the Abbot chose to interpret as affirmation. She looked up, at the Abbot and the image of the Lady whom he served, her face gleaming with tears, and the Abbot said later that he had never seen anything as lovely as she was at that moment, that it was the face of one who had suddenly been given a gift that she had wanted more than life itself, but had never dared even to dream of receiving.

He reached out in the same way to lay his right hand on Hernanual's head, and repeated the invocation, "Do you, Hernanual Lelaut, being of sound mind and sufficient age, with no impediment of law or custom, take this gentle daughter of Oblivion, Rielle, as your lawful wedded wife, to love and be loved by, serve and be served by, in life and in death, to the end of the world?"

Hernanual turned his head and looked at Rielle, and said "Yes, I do" in a firm voice. But the Abbot could see tears on his face as well.

"Then by my power as Warden of Pariah Abbey, granted under royal seal, and my position as Abbot of this abbey and servant of Azura, Lady of Roses, Goddess of Dusk and Dawn, I pronounce you married, from this hour onward to eternity. May you never be parted, and may your happiness be as constant as the succession of day and night."

The Abbot smiled at the couple before him, and added softly, "You may now kiss your partner. Farewell." He turned and walked to the other side of the chapel, and left through the door to the anteroom, followed all the way by the sound of Rielle crying like a child, not from pain or fear, but from joy.


	3. Part Three: College of Winterhold 4E 212

**Part Three: College of Winterhold, 4E 212**

It was snowing. _Again_. Spring came late in this wretched place, a frozen northern outpost of the frozen northern province of Skyrim, Prisa thought, and shivered. In Cyrodiil, they would already be putting away their winter gear for another year and unpacking their spring clothes. Here, all she could think about was where to find another sweater to wear under her heavy coat. _I have the shape of a storm atronach_, she thought wryly, _but nowhere near as much energy_.

The College of Winterhold. _Living up to its name_, she muttered to herself, _especially the "winter" part_. Still, in the third century of the Fourth Era, this was the only place in all Tamriel for one of the human races to get a sound education in the magical arts. The civil war was over in Skyrim, had been over for a decade, but Cyrodiil had become a dreary nightmare of plots and counter-plots. The political chaos seemed to be perpetual, and the situation with the guilds was even worse. There wasn't even a Mages' Guild any more; it had been abolished, and its ceaselessly competing successors, the Synod and the College of Whispers, spent more time pursuing mundane advantage than esoteric knowledge. Here, the traditional schools were still taught, just as they had been since the First Era, when the College was founded. As long as it remained undisturbed, magic was safe.

_How long?_ Prisa thought, and shivered again, not entirely from the cold. Then she pulled herself together and walked across the courtyard to the Hall of Elements. Chief Wizard Tolfdir had called them all together to discuss a manuscript he had recently received, a copy of a document that was supposed to date back to the late Second Era, relevant to his own academic specialty, the School of Alteration. A cautionary tale of somebody blowing himself to bits, no doubt; Tolfdir's obsession with safety and security had only deepened over the years.

In the hall, Prisa found herself standing next to old Urag, the librarian of the College for more years than anyone cared to count. She was a bit surprised; it took a lot to get Urag out of his beloved Arcanium, even if it was only down a couple of flights of steps.

"What is this, anyway, Urag? A copy of a manuscript? Why the fuss?"

"Well," he growled, pulling at his beard, "it's a rare one, a bit of a prize. Rumored to exist for years, but no one knew where it was. Haven't had a chance to read it myself yet. But it's _supposed_ to be a first-person account of dealings between some mortal and a Daedric Prince. It seems this person was trying to bring a spirit into the mortal world as a living being, or something like that. He got into difficulties, and had to appeal for help. I don't know what response he got. Anyway, a lot of it touches on the School of Alteration. That's _one_ reason Tolfdir is so interested in it. The _other_ one is that the sorcerer in the account overreached, and landed himself in trouble that was very nearly fatal, so it fits in with Tolfdir's other interest as well, safety and security. I suppose this fellow is going to be held up to us all as one more example of what happens when you get too confident and try to go too far...Oh well, here he comes. We'll know soon enough."

"It's wonderful to see what interest there still is here in an old man come to talk about an even older book," Tolfdir began, with a genial smile. "Any of you with a specialist interest will be able to read it once it has been copied and the contents cross-checked with everything else we know about a very chaotic period, a period that has been almost forgotten, pushed into the background by the world-changing events that occurred only a few years after.

"The writer seems to have been a young but very accomplished conjurer, and like many mages of the time, he cultivated a close relationship with the Daedric Princes, Azura in particular. Now, Azura has always been considered the most benevolent of the Daedric Lords, but as I have _frequently_ warned students of this college, it is _always_ dangerous to meddle in the affairs of Oblivion. The temptation is constantly present, I know. I have felt it myself. But for your _own_ good, and the good of _all_, it must be resisted. It is simply too easy to make mistakes that may seem small at the beginning, but grow to major proportions as time passes.

"Now, this conjurer managed to compound his mistake by ignoring another precept that you sometimes tire of hearing me repeat – of course he never heard me put it forward, but I'm sure that his instructors must have done so. It's _elementary_ common sense. Under _no_ circumstances should one develop personal bonds or emotional links to the beings of Oblivion that you work with, or work on. They come from a world that was never meant to be united with ours. Magic provides protocols for dealing with them respectfully and efficiently. Safety lies in sticking rigidly to these protocols, no matter what the temptation may be to go beyond them. This mage disregarded them, and he paid a very heavy price for so doing."

A hand shot up in the front row. Prisa recognized it as belonging to Borrig Wolf-Wave, one of the new generation of Nord mages who prized plain speech and often were less than appreciative of Tolfdir's comprehensive but rambling accounts.

"Chief Wizard, a question. What was this mage's name and where did he come from?"

"I don't think either of those details would get you any further ahead," Tolfdir replied. "But since you asked, his name was Hernanual Lelaut, and from the name, we may guess that he was an Imperial."

"I thought so," Borrig added, in a dismissive tone. "They've always been the same, eyes bigger than their bellies."

Prisa hissed at him, loudly, and a ripple of laughter ran round the room. Borrig had come to the College at the same time as Prisa, about two years ago, and for the first few months, the hostility between them had been real, before working and studying together had mellowed it down to what had by now become a running joke, a performance, almost part of the College routine.

"Now, now," Tolfdir said, in an indulgent tone of voice. "You're colleagues, remember. Let's get back to the business at hand."

He paused for a moment, looking off into space thinking about something, and then continued his lecture.

"Well, we've already mentioned two major areas of danger, showing a greater interest than prudent in Daedric arts, and letting feelings get the better of him. However, Lelaut compounded these with a last error, one that was to bring him to the edge of ruin: he trusted too much in his own skills. You'll remember I lectured last month about the legendary "skyshards," the aethereal fragments that could still be found here and there during the Second Age and activated by those who were attuned to their power, rather like the Standing Stones are today. The skyshards were grossly over-used at the end of the Second Age, and we have no _absolutely_ certain information about any intact examples surviving to this day. It is said that there are two in the Imperial collection, but both are burned out and void of magicka, mere shells of what they once were.

"Another is supposed to be in Elsweyr, though its exact location is not known. This one is intriguing. It seems to have retained a shadow of its old power and can still be interacted with by those sensitive enough. But at present we can't be sure of any of that, unfortunately. It appears to have conveniently "disappeared" some years ago, when the Aldmeri Dominion began to take too lively an interest in it for the taste of its Khajiit keepers.

"Now, what the skyshards were said to impart to those sensitive enough to use them was energy and mental vigor. However, there have always been rumors that they had other, darker powers. I suppose we should expect something of the sort, given their rumored connection with Lorkhan, the trickster god. Lelaut had somehow gotten a fully powered skyshard into his possession, and had discovered that on top of its other powers, it had an effect that might best be called 'corporealization.' That is, it allowed ghosts, phantoms, and the like to assume physical form and re-establish a presence on Mundus as entities, not merely as fetches or phantoms. This fascinated him, and without considering the possible dangers of such a procedure, he began experimenting on one of his fetches, a Twilight Matriarch.

"You probably already know that a fetch is not truly a living thing. It can exist in Mundus, briefly, sustained by the magical powers of its master, but it has no true personality or permanent existence. It is merely a temporary copy of an archetype in Oblivion, a Twilight Matriarch being merely a larger version of Azura's most common servant daedra, the Winged Twilight. However, from observations made by mages in the Hollow City in the late Second Era, we _also_ know that a genuine Winged Twilight, the archetype, is a fully corporeal creature capable of developing... well, to be blunt, lustful thoughts about human beings. The children's tale _The Temptations of Master Stibbons_ hints at this, and there's a verse form of the same story, very rare now, that goes into much more lurid detail..."

"Oh, so _that's_ why you were poking about the stacks near our sets of _The Lustful Argonian Maid_ last week," said Urag, loudly, and everyone laughed, including Tolfdir. "I'd almost forgotten that we have a copy of _Stibbons the Studly_ up there as well. Wondered if anyone would ever find a _legitimate_ use for that piece of trash. Nearly got rid of it. Glad I didn't, now."

"I'm glad you didn't, too," said Tolfdir, when the laughter had died away. "For all its crudity, it has made parts of this manuscript much more intelligible than it would otherwise be. Though I confess I could have stood being spared at least a few of the details..."


	4. Part Four: Pariah Abbey, 2E 593

**Part Four: Pariah Abbey, 2E 593**

Abbot Durak usually slept in the main hall, to watch over the statue and the Dreamshard at its base, but on the night he said farewell to Rielle and Hernanual he decided to give them privacy to petition Azura by taking his rest on a cot in the Abbey's basement. The kitchen was down there, and it was warm. But sleep would not come. Finally, he gave up, and went to sit by the kitchen fire, where he finally fell asleep in an old armchair.

He was woken at dawn by a flustered acolyte, one of several who had been sent to search for him.

"Abbot, you must come at once. Something terrible has happened. Before the statue of our Lady... a body..."

_So he failed_, was the Abbot's first thought. _Perished either of my Lady's wrath or his own folly in attempting to travel to her realm. I should have warned him more strongly. And what has become of Rielle?_

"Were there any signs of violence?" he asked the acolyte.

"No. The dead man looks as if he were asleep. But he's dead all right, cold and still. But..."

"But what?" the Abbot inquired as they climbed the stairs to the main hall.

The acolyte did not answer, so Abbot Durak hurried forward to see for himself, fearing the worst.

Most of the Abbey were present in the hall. They had come for the dawn service, and had found a dead body and the Abbot missing. A low murmur of conversation dropped to silence as the Abbot passed through them to the still form at the base of the image. Thank goodness dawn services were so early, the Abbot thought. At least they wouldn't have to explain this to the imperial messenger, whose party would no doubt visit him one last time to express their thanks before leaving.

It was Hernanual. The clothes and the face were the same, though the skin had taken on an even more ghostly pallor. The body lay on its back, the hands crossed on the chest, the feet together, the clothing in perfect order. The Abbot was startled by the expression on Hernanual's face. It was one of absolute peace, the look of someone who had attained his most important goal and was leaving life behind with no regrets, shedding it as one sheds a wet cloak when coming in from the rain. Strange. Had he failed and died? Had he been separated from Rielle? His face showed no sign of any such frustration. The Abbot frowned. There was something here that he did not understand.

He turned to one of the acolytes.

"He was found like this? Exactly? Has anyone touched the body?"

The acolyte shook his head.

"No, he lies exactly as he was discovered about half an hour ago. The body was already cold then. Such an unusual expression on his face..."

So he wasn't imagining the serenity of the body's countenance, Abbot Durak thought. But how could Hernanual be both absolutely contented and completely dead? Unless, of course, Rielle had been at his side when he entered the realm of the Dread Lord...

"Have you searched the area? Are there any other bodies?

The acolyte shook his head.

"Nothing else within the walls of the Abbey, or in its grounds, everyone says. Nothing to be seen at all."

The Abbot knelt to examine the body more carefully. Noticing a slight, square bulge on the left side of the chest area, he guessed that something must be under the cloak there. It turned out to be a small notebook, with an inscription on the first page asking anyone who found it to see that it reached Abbot Durak of Pariah Abbey.

There were about ten pages of handwriting in the notebook. Abbot Durak read them standing beside the body, with the Abbey staff silent and expectant around them. Finally, he closed the notebook and spoke to them.

"This is the body of Hernanual Lelaut, a friend who came here last night to make a request of the Queen of Dusk and Dawn. I attempted to dissuade him, fearing that the request took him onto dangerous ground, or at least dealt with topics that might be difficult to discuss with Our Lady. For honorable, personal reasons, he disagreed with me, and at his urging, I left him to whatever fate Our Lady had in store for him.

"The Queen of Dusk and Dawn saw fit to extend her mercy and grace to him, and he was granted his wish. The mortal form here is no longer of any use to him. It falls to us to dispose of it with respect for the one who once dwelt there, and reverence for She who lent him Her strength when he needed it most."

One of the older nuns prepared the body for burial, sewing it carefully into a cotton shroud. Fortunately, several graves had been dug in the autumn and left open, as was done every year, to avoid the labor of hacking into the frozen ground if a cleric or parishioner passed away in the dead of winter. Two assistant priests carried Hernanual to his rest on a stretcher, and he was buried simply, wrapped in cloth rather than encoffined. The Abbot said a few words at the head of the grave, and one of the acolytes built a fire on the rock-hard pile of earth by its side, so that it could later be used to fill the grave. In the midst of all this, the imperial party dropped in to say farewell, but they accepted the story that a cleric had passed away during the night, and apart from expressing their condolences, showed no further curiosity.

After the imperials were seen off, Abbot Durak returned to the graveside and lingered there, Hernanual's notebook in his hand. He wondered whether to throw it into the grave, to be buried with its author. That at least would ensure that no one in the future tried to follow his path. But it would also mean losing forever the most eloquent and personal statement of the love between him and Rielle. It would almost be like betraying that love, the Abbot thought. There was a locked chest in the library which was the repository for books and papers deemed too dangerous to circulate but too valuable to be discarded. The notebook would be safe enough there.


	5. Part Five: Moonshadow

**Part Five: Moonshadow**

"Why did you turn to me with this problem?" Lady Azura demanded, with a growing tone of irritation in her voice. "Was there no other Power who could have assisted you? I have never devoted much attention to the necromantic arts. You would have done better to pay your respects to Molag Bal. His creatures have experience in this area – a great deal of it."

Hernanual bowed his head in respectful acknowledgment before speaking himself. The more polite, the better. Even though the Queen of Dusk and Dawn had opened a portal and allowed him and Rielle to enter Moonshadow, the Lady seemed very discontented with all that had happened, and not particularly eager to help them.

"Molag Bal is also the Lord of Cruelty and Domination, Lady of Roses. He can hardly be trusted."

"That is correct. But how do you know that _**I**_ can be trusted? I am just as much a Daedra Lord as Molag Bal or any of the rest. And your request, as far as I can even understand it, may very well go beyond the range of my powers. How do you know that I will not simply lash out in frustration if I fail? Don't you think I find it insulting to be put to the test by a being far inferior to myself? You have seen my good side for the last little while, but I am under no obligation to live up to the standards that _mortals_ seek to judge me by. The Dunmer know how I can be when I am pushed too far. And in your love for Rielle, you have been pushing me _very_ far. Tell me, mortal – why do you think I can be trusted?"

Hernanual's reply was soft, almost conversational.

"Molag Bal lives in Coldharbor, a nightmare of frozen ground and lethal traps, eternally dark and cold. His realm might be different, but he would have it as it is, this is his choice. He rejoices in it."

"Indeed. But what are you implying, mortal?"

Hernanual went on in the same soft voice,

"Mehrunes Dagon has made his home in the Deadlands, a horrible world of lava and broken towers. His realm might be different, no one gives orders to a Daedric Prince, but it is so because he would have it so, because its flames and ruins and darkness sooth his heart. Vaermina, in Quagmire, projects insane images of endless torment and despair spun from her own mind; she looks upon these horrors that drive others mad, and finds them good. Malacath is not anywhere as malignant, but he still lives in Ashpit, whose constantly shifting sand and dust mirror his own sense of betrayal and worthlessness. Sheogorath wanders in strange, deformed realms, both whimsical and grim, that give form to his own insanity and insecurity. Sanguine keeps himself endlessly surrounded and distracted with countless reflections of his meaningless debauchery. Hircine hunts obsessively, driven over the plains by a lash and spur that only he can feel, his self-image dangling from the single thread of obedience to the one rule he has made up to convince himself that he is "fair": never hunt prey that have no chance of escape. Hermaeus Mora hides in a crazy, twisted library surrounded by blindly groping tentacles that mirror his own blind, obsessive search for books he will never understand and secrets that he will never be able to use. Mephala squats at the center of a web that is an outward expression of her own tangles of lies and tricks that ensnare and torment. Boethiath, perpetually insecure, wallows in the blood of her followers, whom she keeps in a deadly competition for her favor..."

Hernanual paused briefly, but the Lady of Roses remained silent. He knew that she had already grasped the point he was trying to make, and its implications. It remained only to put it into words.

"No one gives orders to a Daedric Prince. And so, each of them lives in an environment determined solely by its own choices. And the choices in turn are shaped by the true nature of the minds that make them. Ugliness, horror, cruelty, compulsion, delusion, insecurity, self-doubt, outright insanity – all are present and expressed clearly within these other realms. But here? Queen of Dusk and Dawn, this plane of Moonshadow embodies _your_ vision, _your_ inner nature. What does it say about that vision, that nature?"

"But I might love beauty, and still be impatient and cruel," Lady Azura responded. Hernanual noticed at once that the irritated, exasperated tone had disappeared from her voice. He pressed his point again.

"I am a mere mortal, and not even a Daedric Prince can read the mind of another Daedric Prince. I have nothing to judge by other than these outward signs, but the signs are clear and consistent. Apart from the rather overwhelming nature of the beauty here..." He squinted out into the distance a moment, "...nothing negative is perceptible. Perhaps you might still be cruel or evil, but if so, you have hidden it very well. My admittedly inadequate mortal facilities can detect no sign of any such qualities. And the fact that mortals find the beauty here a little bit _too_ dazzling may mean nothing more than a weakness in their sensory abilities when compared with the daedra. It is a difference of degree, not of kind."

There was a long silence, so long that Hernanual felt Rielle, who remained close by his side with her wings tightly folded against her body, begin to tremble again from apprehension or fear. He turned, took her in his arms, and kissed her until the trembling stopped. Then he turned again to face the Queen of Dusk and Dawn. She had been watching them kiss, and continued to look at them for a long moment. Then she began to speak in a soft, almost hesitant voice.

"It is as you said to Abbot Durak, mortal. You will not betray or seek to shame me. But I am afraid that the fact remains. I _cannot_ grant Rielle a soul, even to bring her fully into your world. This was one of the gifts that the Daedra renounced at the dawn of time, when we chose immortality rather than death and the ability to create, to have descendants, to bring forth new souls. This is the price of our power. We have no children, rightfully speaking, though we may refer to our specially favored as our sons and daughters. We need none, since our animus passes from body to body if our physical form is destroyed.

"I can send you back to Mundus, mortal, and enhance to some degree your magical abilities, so that you will find it less difficult to keep Rielle by your side. But that is the most that I can do."

Hernanual bowed his head in acknowledgement. Then he looked the Lady of Roses full in the face again. His voice was firm and clear. He had finally realized the solution to their dilemma.

"You need a soul. Then take mine. I made Rielle what she is today, a hybrid creature, stuck awkwardly between worlds. I owe her anything that I can give to bring her peace. We have sworn to be together forever. I never thought the pledge would become so exact to the words, but if it does, I will have nothing to regret."

"This is what you wish?" The voice of the Lady of Roses was almost a whisper now.

"It is."

By Henanual's side, Rielle mastered her trembling long enough to bow her head in agreement as well.

"Then so be it. I have not the skill to do what is necessary, but I have power of command over one who does. Bear with him if he seems harsh; he is arrogant, and comes from a much crueler world than Moonshadow, but he will obey. I will see that he does."

The Lady of Roses turned to one side, and with a gesture and a few whispered words, opened a portal. Then she summoned a Winged Twilight, whispered to it a moment, and sent it through. She turned and spoke to Hernanual and Rielle again.

"We may have to wait a while, my children. This is a portal to Coldharbor. I was not merely being disagreeable when I said at the beginning that knowledge of the manipulation of souls is best sought there. Lord Molag Bal has some of my Winged Twilights in his service in Coldharbor. I have asked in return to draw on the talents of one of his specialists."

Soon the portal began to tremble and flex, shuddering as it expanded to more than the height of a man. Through it stepped a dark figure in dark clothing. He was taller than Hernanual or even Lady Azura, and the blackness of his skin was not the warm darkness of the Redguard but the harsh patina of forge-worked iron. He did not seem to be very happy with where he was, or what he had found after going through the portal.

"A Xivilai," Hernanual whispered to Rielle. "Arrogant, contentious, and foul-tempered, but very, very capable."

"We are honored," the Queen of Dusk and Dawn said to the enormous, glowering figure. It snarled back, in a deep voice, "You had better be. Why was I summoned here?"

"A transfer of a soul. Your master Lord Molag Bal says you are the best worker with souls at his court, and he believes, the best among all of the daedra. I have no reason to think that he is wrong."

She turned to Hernanual and Rielle.

"Let me introduce you to Manke Dagon, the greatest expert on souls and their manipulation in all of Oblivion. You will be safe in his hands," she continued, giving the Xivilai a significant glance.

Now that his ego had been soothed somewhat by hearing himself described as a master worker by a Daedric Princess, Manke Dagon seemed to lose some of his hostility. He eyed Hernanual and Rielle, sizing them up.

"These the subjects? What do you want done with 'em?"

"These are my children, and so you must work with exceptional care."

Manke Dagon spat on the floor and cracked his knuckles.

"Never work any other way. So, my role in all this...?"

"To transfer the soul of the male human into the body of the female Twilight Matriarch, without eliminating or disturbing the personality of either one."

Manke Dagon smiled. It was a rather nasty smile.

"Done it before. Last time was a demon's soul into a priest. It was funny watching him run around arguing with himself night and day. Only problem was, he couldn't stand it for very long and ended up taking flying lessons off a cliff. I took it out of his hide when his miserable soul showed up in Coldharbor. Ended up forging him into the bottom of a daedric pisspot. That's what he gets for wasting all my good work."

Lady Azura inquired gently, "And the discomfort of the subject came from the contradictory nature of the soul introduced, am I correct?"

Manke Dagon shrugged. "Guess so. We've never done one with two that agreed. Suppose it would work. Not that fun to watch, though."

Then he brightened up, and asked Lady Azura a question.

"What'd'ya plan to do with the male one's body? His soul won't be using it any more. If it doesn't die outright, it'll be a zombie. Say, could you let me take it along when I go back to Coldharbor? I haven't had lunch yet."

Lady Azura gave a brittle smile and shook her head.

"I'm afraid it is necessary to return it to Mundus as soon as possible. I believe I have enough magic to get it through a portal. You're out of luck this time."

Manke Dagon eyed Hernanual, and spat on the floor again. He shrugged.

"All skin and bone anyway," he said in a contemptuous voice. "I'd probably break a tooth."

-o-o-o-

Everything was done. The Queen of Dusk and Dawn stood alone on a balcony of her palace, looking out over her gardens.

Manke Dagon hadn't been able to predict what would happen to the lovers in the end. "Probably be like daedra, immortal," he had guessed, just before entering a portal back to Coldharbor. "Reconstitute if their physical form is destroyed. The souls will probably stay united, if they get a few centuries under their belt together first. But anything's possible. Drop me a line if you learn anything. From the professional standpoint, it's quite interesting."

When she told Hernanual what was to become of his body, Hernanual had asked leave to write down a brief account of what had happened, to reassure Abbot Durak that all had gone well. She had given her permission, and the earthly shell of Hernanual had carried this account back with him to Mundus when she had guided it through a portal and to its rest before her image in Pariah Abbey. Then she had blessed the new Rielle, the two lovers at peace at last, and sent it through a portal of its own to fly high in the skies over Stormhaven and make whatever fate it chose.

She wondered briefly about her own fate. Hernanuel's remarks on the match between the characters of the daedra and the nature of their realms had set her thinking. Did Moonshadow really exist? Or was it a projection of her own mind, reflecting nothing but that mind? And if it were the latter, where and what was her mind?

Did it matter? She was at peace here, and had one more faithful servant ready to do her will in Mundus. To that extent, today was better than yesterday, and for the time being, no dangers threatened. That would have to be good enough.


	6. Part Six: College of Winterhold, 4E 212

**Part Six: College of Winterhold, 4E 212**

A week after Tolfdir's lecture, Prisa was strolling on the College battlements, drawn there by a day of cloudless skies, a light wind, and unusual warmth. Skyrim's weather was far less predicable than that of Cyrodiil, but not all the surprises that it held were unpleasant ones.

As soon as she opened the door that led to the battlements, she noticed that there was another student up there, surveying the scene from just above the gate, a gray bag at his feet. As Prisa drew closer, she saw that it was Borrig, and hesitated. They hadn't spoken to each other since Borrig's unprovoked attack on the character of Imperials during Tolfdir's lecture. Prisa had thought about talking it out with him directly, but in the end she had shrugged her shoulders and decided to let time heal all wounds. Borrig hadn't really meant anything by it, she was sure. It was just habit, a tiresome one to be sure, but without any genuine hostility behind it.

Prisa sat down on the warm stone a couple of meters away from Borrig, leaning her back against the battlements. She looked up into the sky and said quietly, "You can come out now. I'm sure you weren't trying to hurt my feelings."

Borrig laughed quietly.

"Besides, Tolfdir was wrong," Prisa added. "Lelaut is a Breton name, not an Imperial one. One of the soldiers who fell at the Battle of Glenumbra Moors was a Breton named Lelaut. My ancestor was quartermaster of his unit, and we still have some of his documents."

"You've a good memory," Borrig remarked, in a tone that was polite but distant. "History is just a jumble of places and dates to me."

Prisa smiled up at him and said, "Then I suppose you've also forgotten that another one of the fallen at Glenumbra Moors was the King of Skyrim. Ironic, wasn't it? People called him the Elf-Killer, and he wore the title proudly, but he died defending the Direnni against the Alyssians. I wonder how they took the news when he arrived in Sovngarde?"

"He would just have needed to say that he died fighting for the right side. That would have been good enough. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, but right is right and wrong is wrong. That doesn't change. The Alyssians were a plague on us all."

Prisa nodded her head absent-mindedly. She had gotten up again and was looking past Borrig now, at the faint blue mist to the southwest.

"I think a lot about it," Prisa began, very quietly. "I like to remember Glenumbra Moors, where so many came together to risk their lives for mortals whom they didn't know and had never met... some of them even hereditary enemies... because it was the right thing to do, not for any reward."

She paused a moment, and then sang a verse from an old ballad in a soft voice, eyes on the horizon, looking toward Glenumbra.

_Who took up arms that winter dawn and to Glenumbra came?  
><em>_To raise their hand 'gainst tyrants, stand and die in freedom's name?  
><em>_Who stood upon the field that hour to answer Direnni's call?  
><em>_Men, Breton-born, all came that morn, to fend the land for all..._

"It wasn't just the Bretons, of course... it was everyone. The world of mortal beings never had a more glorious hour..."

Her voice trailed off, and Borrig, glancing at her face, was surprised to see her eyes full of tears.

"Why isn't it like that _always_?" she said to the blue mist far to the southwest. Her tone was strained and harsh, as if she were holding on desperately to keep from losing control of her emotions.

Borrig couldn't think of any answer that seemed even remotely adequate. They stood looking at the horizon in silence for what seemed like a very long time.

"I just heard from Urag that the book Tolfdir was talking about isn't going to go into general circulation after all," he said, changing the subject abruptly. "Tolfdir got flustered again, after his talk, and decided that even with cuts, it revealed too much information about... that whatever he called it, some outlandish name. Giving spirits a real, physical form in Mundus. Urag said that he just can't stop fretting over what might happen if information about that art got loose."

Prisa made a sour face. "So the rest of us will have to get on our knees if we want to see it, and then we'll be rejected anyway," she replied, in a disgusted tone.

Borrig responded to Prisa's irritation with a mirthless smile.

"I'm not surprised, after the cross-examination he got from Belana and Rigla at the end of the lecture. Those two seemed to have some project in mind already, though I don't know what it might have been. They just wouldn't leave poor Tolfdir alone. Like wolves on a wounded deer. No wonder he's in a panic."

Belana Serandis was a senior Dunmer student, infamous for her single-mindedness; Rigla Gold-Loom was a Nord who had already risen to the level of junior associate in Conjuration. Neither of them had many friends. Both were too used to getting whatever they wanted, Prisa thought, and now they'd spoiled it for everyone else as well.

"Completely useless caution, too," she snapped. "It's like an old alchemical recipe with ingredients that haven't been seen since the dawn of the First Era. What danger is a formula when its most important ingredient is impossible to obtain? Tolfdir didn't say much about that part of the manuscript, but he did make it _quite_ clear that the procedure required the use of an intact skyshard. No one has seen one of those since the end of the Second Era. Even the one the Khajiit are supposed to have is barely active, and it's been hidden away or lost. Sometimes I wonder whether Tolfdir's quite right in the head. There's caution, and there's paranoia, and he's definitely paranoid."

Borrig turned to look toward the southwest again.

"There's also foresight. Sensing trouble ahead, even if you can't put your finger on when or where or why. Tolfdir may act like a silly old woman at times, but he's a well-informed silly old woman. Try to take him seriously in this. More than you might guess is riding on the decisions we make now."

This enigmatic caution served only to annoy Prisa even more. She started to speak, and then checked herself suddenly, to re-edit what she wanted to say into something more diplomatic. But her exasperation still came through, impossible to conceal completely.

"We're frightened of our own shadows. No wonder magic is in such a state. Shalidor would have been ashamed of us."

"Shalidor got himself into enough trouble through his recklessness to last thousands of years," Borrig replied. "He's not a good role model here." He broke off at that point and looked steadily at Prisa until she began to feel uneasy.

Finally he spoke again.

"There's a problem. I'm the immediate cause of it, but if it had not been me now, it would have been someone else later. You're level-headed, able to keep your mouth shut, and I think you understand the dangers involved better than you let on. You don't have an agenda of your own. And you care about these things, a lot. That's most important of all."

"I don't understand..."

Borrig bent down and picked up the sack at his feet. He handed it to Prisa.

"Take a look at this. It will tell you most of what you need to know."

Prisa unwrapped the contents of the sack carefully. It was light, and the shape suggested a vase or some sort of ceremonial vessel. She tugged away a second layer of cloth, and peered into the mouth of the sack to examine the object inside.

There was a blinding flash of blue-white light, a loud hissing or humming sound, and Prisa lost consciousness. When she came to, she found herself staring straight up into the vault of the sky, temporarily unable to move or speak. Borrig was on his knees beside her, looking more embarrassed than worried.

"You'll be all right in a moment. It did the same thing to me when I first discovered it. I'm sorry for having been so vague. I hadn't thought that you might be a sensitive as well. Silly of me not to consider that."

"Sensitive... to... _what_?" Prisa croaked out, with considerable effort, still flat on her back. But she had already guessed.

Borrig answered her with a sardonic half-smile.

"You know how they say that you can find at least one of anything that has ever existed, from the beginning of the world onward, buried somewhere in the storeroom of an old Nord family? Unfortunately, that turned out to be correct. And my family is very, very old, and they've fallen heir to the property of other old families, mostly through marriage. We've piled up quite a bit of stuff... quite a bit... and literally piled up. No order to the accumulation at all. You'd have to see it to believe it.

"The last time I made a long visit back home, early last year, I dug up a lovely old set of alchemy equipment in our storeroom. No one had any idea whose it had been, or how long it had been there. Centuries, perhaps. So I kept on digging when I returned home briefly, a couple of months ago, and found... _that_," he said, nodding his head toward the bag, which lay on the paved floor three or four feet away from them. "After I got up off the storeroom floor, it didn't take long to realize what it was. How it got there, no one knows. But you and Urag are the only people here who know that it exists, and that it's with me now."

"What are you carrying it around with you for? Practical joking?

Borrig shook his head.

"To tell you the truth, I was half-thinking of throwing it off the battlements here. Hoped it might break. But that would be irresponsible. What would happen to the pieces? What if it just bounced and got stuck somewhere, or disappeared among the cliff rocks? What if it ended up in the sea, and a winter storm washed it up some day? No. I've talked it over with Urag, and I agree with him. It has to be put somewhere safe. Beyond temptation. And it has to be done quietly, and quickly, before anyone realizes what is going on."

He got to his feet, and helped Prisa up, but she was still a little unsteady and clung to his arm for a moment until the world steadied around her. She glanced nervously at the bag containing the skyshard, and Borrig chuckled.

"Lighning doesn't strike twice. It's perfectly safe to handle now, even if you are a sensitive, as I suspect a lot of magic users are. There's only fireworks the first time you get together."

Prisa straightened up and took a few tentative steps back and forth, until she was sure she could walk without falling. The sun was beginning to move down in the western sky, and a cold little wind had risen from the high peaks on the mainland. She shivered.

"Only Urag knows? Well, I can see your point... he's about the only one here who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. And he's read a lot about such things. Where does he think it should go?"

Borrig didn't answer at once. He picked up the bag with the skyshard, and took Prisa's arm. The two began to walk slowly back to the door that led back to the Arcanium. Prisa felt very weary, not just from the experience, but from the news. _More trouble. Always trouble around mages. At least Borrig's behaving responsibly_, she thought to herself, and leaned a bit harder on him. _Where will all this end?_ They passed through the door into the entrance court for the Arcanium, and Prisa broke free of Borrig to sit down on the first bench she could find. But she gestured for him to sit beside her, and when he did, sought his support again.

"It'll pass," he said, in a reassuring voice. "For me, it felt almost like losing a lot of blood. The dizziness took a long time to wear off, nearly a day. I'll stay with you until you feel better, if you want."

Prisa nodded, and said in a small voice, "Help me back to my chamber, Borrig. Sit with me for a while, if you can. Tell the others I'm indisposed if they ask. Feverish. Dizzy. Not so far away from the truth. Damn... I want to come with you now to talk with Urag, but that'll have to wait. Don't want to throw up on one of his beloved books..."

He patted her hand. "You'll be all right by tomorrow. You might dream tonight, though. I did. Not to worry. It gave me some hints about the future, I think. You might get more from it, if you know what to expect."

"I can hardly wait," Prisa muttered, and her delivery was so deadpan that they both began to laugh. Then she struggled to her feet and began walking to her chamber in the Hall of Attainment, once more leaning heavily on Borrig's arm, feeling foolish and dependent, but at the same time, curiously secure.


	7. Part Seven: Whiterun, 4E 212

**Part Seven: Whiterun, 4E 212**

Prisa slowly raised her head, her eyes still closed. She was in bed, lying on her left side, with her head on a pillow and the rest of her covered by a quilt, deliciously soft and light. Low voices and noises of movement could be heard, but they were muffled. She breathed in slowly. Everything smelt familiar-fresh, not the strained purity of a sickroom, but that of a well-kept space that was lived in and loved. Obviously an inn, a respectable one, a solid member of the community. From how soft the noises were, she guessed the door was closed, and no heat was being shed from the small fireplace she remembered seeing in the opposite wall, but the room remained warm. She felt safe, in harmony with the world, even if for a moment she couldn't recall what inn this was, how she had gotten there, what city or town this was, or why she was there at all. Or anything. _There will be a reason_, she thought, still more than half asleep. _It'll come to me in a moment._

She kept her eyes closed and let her head sink back onto the pillow for a few moments. They were a week out of Winterhold on their way to High Rock, she recollected. No doubt she had some important task to do in this unknown town with its nameless but eminently satisfactory inn, but it would have to wait. The day felt fresh and clear, a day suitable for new beginnings and pleasant discoveries. Nothing bad could happen to her on such a day, Prisa concluded, drifting between sleep and waking. Nothing was going to spoil it. She had always known that she deserved days like this, though her mother had disagreed, loudly. Now that such a day had finally been given her, she told herself with a satisfied little nod, she wasn't going to look her gift horse in the mouth.

Besides, her mother was miles away. She felt another smile spread across her face. _Thank goodness for that. _She'd been spared no end of shouting and insults. Such a fuss there would be. But not now, not today.

Still smiling, she opened her eyes. Borrig was there, lying on his right side only a few inches away, his head on the pillow, his eyes open, looking at her. He was smiling as well. She examined him for a moment. Why hadn't she noticed before how pretty his eyes were, she wondered. How could she become a good mage if she let details like that slip past her?

But it wasn't a time for questions. She brought her right hand up, under the blanket, to hold his left shoulder, and then leaned over and kissed him. He kissed her back. It took a while for them to finish, it felt so comfortable and such a perfect way to start a perfect day. When they finally managed to break off, Prisa lowered her head to his chest and he gently nuzzled her long brown hair. Then he slipped his right arm around her shoulders and drew them together so that the whole length of them was touching, and kissed her again. Prisa registered, with a faint feeling of wonder, that neither of them seemed to be wearing anything. _What would Mother think?_ Then Borrig started to stroke her bare back with his left hand, so gently, and she felt as if she had begun to float, like a golden banner from a castle wall, Borrig's arms and lips her only anchor to the world. _Who cares what Mother thinks_, she thought to herself as she glittered and twirled in the sunlight. _This is ours, not hers. It's all ours._

One thing led to another, and in the end, it was quite a while before they were ready to get out of bed. Even when they managed the feat, they began to cuddle and kiss as soon as they stood up, and it was soon obvious that these activities could be managed much more efficiently if they were lying down. So back to bed they went. To tell the truth, they had tired themselves out again anyway, and another nap seemed the only prudent course of action. A day as blatantly perfect as the one before them indulged decisions of that sort, whispering in their ears to take their time, all the time they wanted.

Prisa looked at Borrig. Borrig looked at Prisa. Then Prisa began to laugh, a laugh of relief rather than of humor.

"Do you remember which one of us made the first move?" she asked.

Borrig furrowed his brow in mock cogitation. "I think it was both of us. Or neither. The distance between us seemed to drain away very suddenly, like a mead barrel with the bottom knocked out, and we came into contact by sheer force of nature. Spontaneous combustion of the heart. I'm glad we don't have to explain it to anyone. I don't really care how it happened. Just that it happened." He laughed and shook his head ruefully. "Lovers for all of twelve hours or so, and I'm already forgetting the details."

Prisa thought for a moment before continuing. "I think I knew _somehow_ that it was going to happen. Ever since the skyshard, the flash and brightness on the roof of the college, and your helping me downstairs and into bed. I remember in a sort of confused way that I wished you would get into bed with me so that I could hold your hand all night. I was very much frightened by it all, you know, at the time. But you were a fine gentleman that night and slept in a chair beside my bed."

"And got backache. And held your hand when you asked me to."

"And held my hand when I asked you to. Yes. Of course it was you who fried me with that damned skyshard in the first place. Such a long chain of coincidences. Your bringing it here at the same time Tolfdir got his hands on that book. My meeting you on the battlements by chance, just when you were lugging it around to do something you'd already decided not to do. Your spur of the moment decision to make this _greedy, selfish, shallow, ignorant Imperial airhead __from a stuck-up aristocratic family_ one of the only two people you would confide in, and the one who would go with you on your mission..."

"Hey, no fair. I never insulted you with more than _two_ of those adjectives at any one time."

"Some of it's true anyway," Prisa sighed, and shook her head. "Especially the _stuck-up aristocrat_ part of it. _I will have you know that my mother is a Tharn..._"

"Never heard you begin anything with that line," Borrig said, grinning. "And I think I would have remembered..."

"If Mother had her way, I'd begin _everything_ with it. Even my prayers to the Nine. Conceited _bitch_," Prisa said, snapping out the last word with enough force to make Borrig raise his eyebrows.

"Do you know the song?" he said in response. "Kids sing it all over Skyrim. It begins well enough, I suppose...

"_You can't keep a Tharn back,  
><em>_You can't make a Tharn crack,  
><em>_You can't shove a Tharn to the back of the hall!  
><em>_You'll never out-scheme him,  
><em>_You'll never out-dream him,  
><em>_It's he who will rise, and you who will fall!_"

To Borrig's considerable surprise, Prisa then sat up straight and sang the second verse from memory, without hesitation.

"_You can't keep a Tharn down,  
><em>_You can't turn a Tharn round,  
><em>_You can't send a Tharn to the end of the line!  
><em>_He'll cheat and he 'll trick you,  
><em>_He'll punch and he'll kick you,  
><em>_He'll sleep with your daughter and drink all your wine!_"

She smiled sweetly. "I used to sing it to myself, in a whisper, as a spell against evil when Mother dear favored me with one of her tirades about family honor and purity. The importance of chastity so that I would keep my market value for when she traded me off in one of her stupid political marriage alliances. As I said, _bitch_. She can go swimming in Deadlands lava for all I care...Did I get the tune right?"

"Perfect," Borrig replied. "Thought I confess that the part I most enjoyed wasn't the song, but the lovely view of your breasts that I got when you sat up to sing it."

She swatted him lightly and groaned. "By the glittering golden dildos of Dibella, you're hopelessly dirty-minded. Please, _never_ change." She paused, and her expression became a bit more serious. "You know...I always suspected you were attracted to me. You just put so much time and effort into insulting me, it was hard to miss."

"Maybe... maybe I was afraid that this would happen," Borrig began. "In a way. Not afraid, apprehensive. Of the messy consequences. Every member of our families, on either side and every generation, is going to hate us. A veritable chorus of barking, sneers, and snarls. But now or ever, I don't care."

Prisa shook her head, a knowing smile on her face. "Not _every_ member, silly. You should be able to think of some _very_ important family members who are certain to be delighted that everything ended up as it did."

"And who might those be?" He furrowed his brow again, this time genuinely puzzled.

Prisa sat up again and patted herself on the belly, in the process giving Borrig an even better view of local points of interest.

"Our children, of course! The only family that really counts. The family that we're going to make, not the ones that were wished on us by fate. They say that even an Elder Scroll can be rewritten by the actions of a heroic mortal. A clan genealogy doesn't stand a chance."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "And thank you for being gentle last night. Despite my enthusiasm, I was... am... very much a beginner. At least in the two-person version of the game. Family obsession with purity again..."

She made a face as if she'd eaten something too sour to endure. Then she grinned.

"Beats skyshards, though. There's fireworks _every_ time, not just the first..."

Borrig laughed. "Indeed. But I wasn't so much gentle as wondering what to do next," he admitted. "You're lucky I didn't try to put it in your belly button. Or your ear. My family is just as big a pack of evasive idiots on that topic as yours is, and ignorance here is definitely not bliss."

Prisa sighed in relief. "Then thank all the gods we're safely past the basics. Celibacy stinks. Some things just aren't meant to be done alone..."

-o-o-o-

The happy couple would probably have been just as pleased to stay in bed all day, but a tap on the door brought them back to the real world early in the afternoon. It was a courier message, passed in through a crack in the door by a barmaid whose stifled giggling could be heard clearly by both Prisa and Borrig.

Borrig, still as nature made him, hid behind the door, took the message, and locked the door again. He gave it to Prisa, still unopened; Prisa tore it open and read it. She glanced up at Borrig, a quizzical look on her face.

"College business. From the Great One herself. I'd forgotten that Whiterun is her home town. She hasn't visited Winterhold for gods know how long now."

Borrig nodded. "What does the Dragonborn, Thane of Whiterun and Riften and Solitude and just about everywhere else, Legate of the Imperial Legion, Harbinger of the Companions, rumored leader of assorted other less respectable groups and organizations, want with us?"

"To invite us to dinner. Tonight. She has a message from Urag, it seems. Oh, and it looks as if she knows about our relationship as well..." Prisa shook her head. "I'd expect no less from someone who's a personal acquaintance of Hermaeus Mora, Lord of Fate and Destiny."

"Are there any of the Daedric Lords she _isn't_ a personal acquaintance of?"

Prisa thought for a moment. "Well, I _have_ heard it said that she stiff-armed Vaermina, the Lady of Nightmares, when Vaermina had the bad taste to suggest she murder the person she'd been helping to clear an old temple. Apart from that... no, actually, I _do_ think she knows them all. Hmmm..."

Borrig smiled. "Just so long as she isn't in a Namira mood tonight. 'Who are we having for dinner' can have at least two meanings, you know."

Prisa began to giggle loudly, and soon Borrig was laughing as well. The shared laughter brought them perilously close to bed-wrestling again, but they somehow managed to contain themselves and began preparing for their unanticipated night out with the Arch-Mage.


	8. Part Eight: Whiterun, 4E 212

**Part Eight: Whiterun, 4E 212**

It turned out that the Dragonborn, "chief cook and bottle-washer to the mortal world," as Prisa wryly dubbed her, lived just down the street from their inn, the Bannered Mare. She owned a modest residence named Breezehome that had remained empty for years before her coming, since it was nowhere near imposing enough to attract the attention of any of the city's up and coming residents. Breezehome lay in a working-class quarter of merchants and artisans, next to a blacksmith's forge near the city's main gate, not further up the hill in the company of those who considered themselves born for higher things. It was the sort of residence that a well-off carpenter or fletcher might take pride in, and the fact that the Arch-Mage and her partner Shahvee the Argonian lived there nearly all the year, rather than occupying the much more imposing homes they had built or bought elsewhere, was yet another puzzle for those who tried to understand their character and motivations.

As Borrig and Prisa approached, hand in hand, a small girl ran past them, making a beeline for Breezehome's front door. When he saw the child's destination, Borrig stopped and drew Prisa to the side, into the shadow of another house. Prisa, puzzled, glanced at him, but he only put his finger to his lips. They were close enough to hear clearly, but not to be seen easily as the evening darkened into night.

The girl appeared to be a Nord. Her dress was very plain and patched in a couple of places. She almost collided with the closed door, but stopped just in time to hammer on it and then stand back to wait, her hands on her hips.

The door opened, and a warm yellow light shone out onto the road. The girl looked up at whoever had opened it and smiled. The person in the house spoke first.

"Hello, Berta. What are you doing out in the dark? I hope there's no emergency." The voice was low and a bit raspy, but friendly. Prisa knew that it couldn't be that of the Arch-Mage, whom both she and Borrig had heard speak several times. It had to be that of Shahvee, then. Prisa glanced up at Borrig's face. He was concentrating on the scene unfolding before them. Prisa wondered what he expected to learn from it.

"My mom sent me, Shahvee; it's not a danger but it's a bit of an emergency, so I hope I'm not interrupting you or anything...it's just that we're getting ready for a visit from Grandpa and our big wooden mixing bowl went and split, I don't know how, but Mother wants to ask, can she borrow yours, because she has to make the dough tonight for the biscuits that Grandpa likes so much, and he's coming in the morning, and the stores are all closed now, and in the morning it will be too late. So could we borrow your mixing bowl, please? We'll bring it back tomorrow noon, I'll bring it back myself, and if anything happens to it, we'll buy a new one for you as well as for ourselves, but right now it's kind of an emergency so could we borrow one from you and Vivian, please?"

"Of course, dear. It's a bit damp since we just used it and washed it, but I'm sure that will be all right. Do you want to come in?"

"Thank you ever so much Shahvee and thanks to Vivian too, it's really important and Mother was so upset when the bowl broke, but I told her you'd lend her one because you are nice people, I'd better get it right home and not come in, 'cos you'll just start feeding me like you did last time, I'll visit when I bring it back, OK?..."

They heard Shahvee laugh. "You're quite a convincing speechmaker, you know, Berta. You'll make a good envoy or diplomat one day. But you have to remember to breathe now and again, too. You'll make yourself dizzy. Just sit down on the step, if you don't want to come in, and I'll go get it."

In a few moments, Berta was skipping off with the bowl on her head, and the door was closed. Prisa turned to nuzzle Borrig's chest for a moment, and then looked up at him.

"I'm glad we saw that. They say she can be difficult sometimes...but look at how the little girl was acting, almost as if it were her own home. I like that, a lot. How did you know what was going to happen?"

Borrig held her and stroked her head, running his fingers through her long brown hair.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't. I'm not sure what I was looking for. Only that the way someone behaves towards neighbours is usually a pretty good clue to how they see themselves and the world. Those two don't hold themselves above any of these people at all, it's plain to see. I wonder if that reputation for 'difficulty' she has is only seen by people who are difficult themselves..."

Prisa said, in a dry tone, "Such as those who will _have you know their mother is a Tharn_..." and both of them laughed softly. "We'll be late. Let's go. We can talk it over afterward."

-o-o-o-

Both Prisa and Borrig had met the Dragonborn several times at College events, and heard her speak, but for the past few years she had been so busy that she was only rarely in Winterhold. One of the first things that she did, when they met in the front parlor of her home, around the fire, was to apologize for this.

"I hope you can consider it a compliment," she remarked in a soft, tired voice, as they ate. "I never seem to be dealing with anything but trouble, and there's been none at the College for years, thank goodness. I know you think Tolfdir is timid, but he has good reason, believe me. Both the Synod and the College of Whispers resent the authority and the seniority of the College of Winterhold, resent it _very_ keenly, and they'd seize on any excuse to discredit it. Or worse."

Borrig looked up from his meal. "Worse? As in abolish?"

The Dragonborn nodded. "If they could. They exist more to keep on top of the political heap than to advance magic. A center for the serious study of the magical arts makes them look bad in comparison. And both of them would like to have the College's library, of course."

"Over Urag's dead body, I would think," Borrig responded.

The Dragonborn sighed and shook her head.

"I can remember thinking that something like that would never happen, that it was impossible. But that's too optimistic. Anything can happen if we let it. _Anything_."

She paused for a moment and then continued, looking at Borrig and Prisa in turn. "That's why I'm glad to see you here, glad you agreed to go so far on what must seem like a strange errand."

"That's one of the things I've been wondering about," Prisa began. "I suspected that we might need help in getting rid of the skyshard, and ensuring it could never be misused, but why travel all the way to Stormhaven to do it? If we have to call upon the Lady of Roses, aren't there shrines to her closer than that?"

"There are," the Dragonborn replied. "But we know little of their present circumstances, and even less of their history. They might be held in conjunction with other, darker Powers, or the worshipers might not be as pure in heart as we could wish. Very few innocents turn to Oblivion for aid. You're safer going to Pariah Abbey, where we have a better idea of what is going on and more control over the surroundings."

"The congregation there is still active?" Borrig asked. "It's so exposed. Daedra worship in Cyrodiil went more or less underground after the Oblivion crisis, and I'd assumed it was the same in High Rock as well."

"Not active," the Dragonborn replied. "They're gone. To all apperances, it's abandoned. The authorities in Wayrest keep a guard there to make sure that the gates and doors are all locked and the grounds kept clear of intruders. There's no abbot and no congregation, not any more. Just the abbey buildings.

"It's a strange place. It hasn't been in use for over three hundred years now, but it's still as complete as on the day the last abbot died and it was abandoned. No damage, no wear. Scarcely any dust. A bit of fading, perhaps. Some say that Lady Azura preserves it with her magic, in preparation for the day when her worship will return to High Rock. I can't say. I've been there. I felt no evil, only a... watchfulness. An expectancy, perhaps. That's one reason I thought it best that you go there. The other is this..."

The Dragonborn reached back to a bookshelf and pulled out a slender, soft volume. It seemed to be written on leaves of thin leather, like a children's book intended to stand up to hard wear and many successive generations of use. She gave it to Prisa, and Borrig got up and knelt beside her so that they could examine it together.

"Oh, _look_...is this how they live on now? As heroes for children?" Prisa paged hurriedly through the book, devouring it; Borrig, more practical, lifted an edge so that he could read the title.

"_The Grey Guardian_," Borrig said. "I can't see if there is an author."

The Dragonborn remarked, "That type of book rarely has the author marked. Most of them are traditional tales retold in simple language for beginning readers, with plenty of illustrations. Every copy is slightly different. Rielle and Hernanual have become legends of devotion and service to others, protecting travelers in the dusk and dawn. Look..." She leaned over and pointed. "I suppose it was too difficult to depict Hernanual as a soul within Rielle's form, so this artist has made him into a little ghost that rides on her back."

"This volume comes from Wayrest, but the story's known all over. Even among people who are too poor to buy books," Shahvee said. "There's something about the story of two who could never bear to be parted that touches hearts, especially young ones." Borrig noticed that Shahvee was holding hands with the Dragonborn, who seemed suddenly very weary.

Prisa looked through the book several times, smiling at the stories and illustrations, and then put it down beside her chair, leaned on Borrig's shoulder, and began to cry. She felt silly crying like that over a children's story book, and tried several times to apologize to the Dragonborn and Shahvee, only to begin sobbing again. Finally, after what seemed to her to be an eternity of embarrassment, she regained her composure.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "But sometimes things seem to be so beautiful and precious... but in terrible danger, and there is so little I can do... I think of what the world would be like if we lost them, and I can't stand it... too sentimental... I'll try to control myself in the future, I promise..."

The Dragonborn leaned forward and laid her scarred left hand on Prisa's right shoulder; Prisa's left side was snuggled against Borrig, taking refuge in his warmth. She gave Prisa a little shake.

"Don't push it away, Prisa. Don't try to 'control' it. Let it control you. You have to understand. That's where your power comes from. You still have your own child's heart alive inside you. You can feel for others as strongly as you can for yourself. It makes you terribly vulnerable, of course, to be so sensitive. But if you have someone else's love to shield you..." Here she turned for a moment and exchanged a long look with Shahvee, taking both her hands and kissing her before turning back again and continuing, "If you have some help, someone's shoulder to lean on when it becomes for a time too dark to endure... you can do it. I was like that once. I'm not so much any more. Too much war, too many battlefields, too many dead, too many killed by my own hand. Too much blood that won't wash off. Too much needing not to feel anything at all for fear I'd go mad. But the world is more peaceful now. Perhaps you can keep your child's heart safe, let its influence grow... I hope so. We need it so badly now."

The Dragonborn leaned down and picked up the children's book. She looked at it in silence for a moment.

"When I talk with Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Destiny and the scrying of the patterns of Fate, he always refers to destiny as a fabric, a textile, with all of us its individual threads. Hernanuael and Rielle, and you, and us, and Urag and Tolfdir, even the Queen of Dusk and Dawn...we're all in the same pattern, the same weave. There have been no coincidences in the way this has developed, just a working out of that pattern toward one of several possible endings. You'll need to be sensitive to know which one is the best, to tease the thread out to the end. You've already passed safe through terrible dangers unknowing. Urag sent me a message, it came yesterday. He's been doing some research into skyshards, now that Tolfdir has finally allowed him to see the manuscript, and some of what he's found is alarming."

Borrig was listening intensely now, with Prisa still leaning on his shoulder and sniffling a bit. "What's the news? If it's dangerous, we'd better know. We don't want anything to trip us up now, so close to the goal."

"Well... for one thing, Urag noticed that Hernanual had appended some instructions as to what to do with his earthly goods to the manuscript that he left. It looks like he did it in a hurry. They're just a scribble and very abbreviated, so I don't think Tolfdir, or anyone, appreciated their importance. But of course Urag... there's literally no one better when it comes to disentangling bad handwriting and obscure vocabulary. He says that it's almost certain that the skyshard Hernanual used and the one that ended up in that Nord storeroom are the same – the descriptions match – and if they are, the shard is unusually powerful and contains... well, an _immense_ amount of energy, far more than it emits when a sensitive touches it for the first time.

"So I'm glad you listened to him, Borrig, when he told you it would be a bad idea to try to break it. If you'd tossed it off the battlements of the College and it had shattered on the rocks, it's quite likely that there would have been an energy release – an explosion – powerful enough to obliterate what's left of Winterhold. Probably even powerful enough to overcome the wards that hold the College and its foundations together and send everything toppling into the sea."

"Not... an ideal outcome, I should think." Borrig gulped and looked lost for a moment; Prisa kissed him on the ear and whispered "My brave world-destroyer..."

"Now you know the sort of stakes we play for," the Dragonborn said in a flat voice, drained of emotion. "Up to and including the end of everything. Literally. I've been doing this for nearly fifteen years now, and I'll be doing it for the rest of my life. And in a way, I'm sorry that you two have been dragged into it. I can promise you you'll hate it a lot of the time. I just hope you don't hate me as well by the end.

"But someone has to hold a candle against the darkness, to stand against the threat of the night that never ends. To go out and face all the forms the Void can take. This is a taste of it, a starter, the sort of thing that will seem routine soon enough. Tidying up after someone's carelessness. Hernanual was a love-blind fool to just wander off leaving something so dangerous lying around. He should have taken it to the Lady of Roses himself, to her realm in Oblivion where it can never do any harm to anyone. He didn't. So, someone else has to. And that someone else turns out to be you."

There was a long pause. Then Prisa said, "We'll do this, of course. We're already in the middle of it and we'll see it through to the end. But you speak as if there will be task after task, perhaps for our whole lives. How do you know we'll go on? You make it sound like a punishment, not a responsibility."

"Perhaps you won't," the Dragonborn replied. "But once you get a taste of this life, this whole secret world under the world that silently protects and supports all the good things that most people just take for granted... I don't think you'll be able to step back. Some people call us the Invisible Guard, and for those who do know our mission, it's seductive. It will pull you in, make you part of it. It's like love that way; it doesn't ask permission.

"And there _are_ rewards. Knowing that you guard over others, protect them from dangers, help them in ways they'll never know. That they must never be _allowed_ to know. I think most of all though...the biggest reward is those that you'll meet on the way. I almost said people, or mortals...It can go far beyond that, to places you could never imagine...Some will be opponents. Some are just alien to concepts like good and evil, Powers to be dealt with as best you can. But some will become your companions and allies. Mortals like Urag and Tolfdir; Serana, heir to the Volkihar house, vampire princess, one of our closest friends; Master Paarthurnax, wiser than all of the rest of us, the dragon who lives at the peak of the Throat of the World. And so many others, too many to count.

"Most important of all, I met my true love on this journey, the center and focus of my life, Shahvee. It was the dragons that brought me to the Windhelm docks on a sunny winter morning to find her, and the dragons and civil war that brought me back again and again until one day I asked her if she could find it in her heart to follow me away. Our two halves became a whole, and we have been together ever since, for now and for ever. And look at you two. Brought together by the road you have begun to walk, whether or not you believe it. The task must need you very badly, to reward you so early and so generously."

"I feel... swept away..." Prisa said, hesitantly. "But a bit, you know..." She looked up at Borrig, hoping he'd find the word for her.

"Excited? Exhilarated?"

Prisa nodded.

"That's good," the Dragonborn responded. "One thing you can be sure of – it won't be dull. Risky, depressing, _horrifying_... but not boring."

She got up from her chair, a little bit too quickly, and staggered as if she had lost her balance. Borrig and Prisa both sprang up to support her, but Shahvee was there first, wrapping her arms around the Dragonborn to steady her until she regained her footing. It occurred to Prisa that Shahvee had been unobtrusively watching the Dragonborn all night. She seemed to have been expecting something like this to happen, perhaps because it had happened before, but Prisa decided not to ask about it.

Held firmly but gently, the Dragonborn put her head on Shahvee's shoulder and stood silently for a moment, her eyes closed. When Shahvee spoke, her tone was mild but firm, as if she were talking to an over-enthusiastic child who had driven herself too hard and was now paying the price.

"Vivian, love, you haven't slept for nearly three days now. I've practically had to break a plate over your head to get you to eat. It's not reasonable to push yourself so much. You'd better lie down now before you fall down. You always try to do too much and now you've startled our guests."

"Sorry, love," the Dragonborn murmured, her face still buried against Shahvee's shoulder and neck. Then she shook herself a little, almost a shudder, and turned to face Borrig and Prisa to say a few last words.

"I apologize for my condition," the Dragonborn began. "I should have warned you in advance. I'm just back from holding talks in Markarth, trying to stop the people around there from fighting. Reachmen, Nords, and just to make things _really_ interesting, dragons as well. Everyone is sure everyone else is trying to cheat them of their land. On top of that, the Reachmen aren't united, and the only thing they agree on is that they hate the Nords. Settle their quarrels with the local Nords, and then turn your back for a moment and the Reachmen go for each others' throats. Anyway, I haven't had much sleep recently."

She shook her head and smiled faintly. "Just one last thing before I get put to bed. You'll be followed to the Abbey, and probably back. By friends, not by enemies. Some of our people will stay close to see that no one gets in your way. I don't expect it will be necessary; it's a precaution. And you'll have free run of the Abbey and the whole area to do whatever you must. The guards have been told you're coming. That's it, I think. Good night, now. I feel a lot better now that I've seen you and talked with you."

"I'll be back in a moment," Shahvee said to Borrig and Prisa. "There's still one or two details to go over. Just sit down and make yourself at home."

-o-o-o-

After they said good night to Shahvee, Prisa and Borrig walked back to the Bannered Mare, hand in hand, but silent. When they reached the market square, Prisa led Borrig over to the well and then halted. She looked up into the sky. The moons had set, but the sky was clear and the stars were very bright. The wind that had been blowing when they came out had died away, and the air was so still that they could hear the armored feet of the guards patrolling the square around the Gildergreen. It was too late for anyone else to be out. The only other person within view was the market guard, who seemed to be paying them no attention. Actually, he was watching them out of the corner of his eye, but for personal, not professional, reasons: the passionate relationship between these two mysterious mages had become the topic of a good deal of gossip, mostly friendly, and the guard knew that if he could add anything interesting to it, it would be worth a drink or two the next time he was in the Bannered Mare himself.

Prisa examined the wellhead. It was barred over so that nothing could fall in by accident and contaminate the water. She muttered, "Well, so much for _that_ idea."

Borrig smiled at her. He knew how she felt, because he felt the same way himself. His head was still spinning. It was as if a merry wrecking crew of Aedra and Daedra had come bounding into their lives, broken all the windows, painted the ceiling pink, and rearranged all the furniture, with no warning and no explanation of what they were doing, or why.

"Considering jumping?"

"No," Prisa said, and smiled back. She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Not unless you jump with me. I was actually wondering whether anyone would look for a skyshard at the bottom of a very deep well..."

Borrig shook his head. "They clean and inspect these wells every six months. Whiterun's proud of its water supply."

"Damn. So it's us on the road south again, tomorrow morning. Do you have any idea of what we're supposed to do when we reach Pariah Abbey?"

"No. We'll find out. Perhaps Rielle will give us a hint, or help us contact her mistress. There will be something."

They stood arm in arm for a few moments, examining the stars together as if an answer were to be found there. Prisa was the first to speak.

"She worries me. The Dragonborn. She nearly collapsed right in front of us. And did you see the scars on her hands and arms? And her neck? She looks like a post in a barracks-yard that every bored soldier takes a hack at. If that's what's in store for us in our new existence, I'm not looking forward to it. Though mind you... scars can look dashing on a man. Not so much on a woman, though."

Borrig laughed and hugged her. "I'll pass on the scars, if you don't mind. I'm not even fond of tattoos."

He paused for a moment, then went on in a more serious voice. "You have to remember that she fought all the way through the Civil War in Skyrim, usually five paces in front of everyone else. I have older friends who saw her in action. They say she was terrifying, to the Stormcloaks, but often to her own troops as well, she fought so recklessly and ruthlessly. She'd crash into a castle courtyard and sweep through the fortifications, and the soldiers running to keep up with her would find only the bodies of the garrison, dying or dead. She didn't take prisoners. She killed before the soldiers she was attacking had a _chance_ to surrender. And the way she killed... she had weapons and magic that gave her own soldiers nightmares, things that left nothing but charred bodies or piles of ash or sometimes... nothing at all where a soldier had been standing a moment before. And after the battle was over, she'd wander around, dazed, looking at the scene as if she didn't know where she was, and then just leave abruptly. Almost run away, when everyone else was celebrating the victory.

"One of my friends met her by chance just after a battle. He said she was crying and trying to shake the dead bodies awake as if she was just realizing for the first time what she had done. When she saw him, she stared at him for a moment with tears running down her face and then said, quietly, 'Look at it. All of it. See what I've become.' And then she ran off like the wind."

"That's _horrible_. I'm surprised she's still sane. The poor woman..." Prisa began to cry herself, softly, and Borrig held her until she regained her composure.

"You can see why she says she's been blunted down from what she once was."

Prisa shook her head violently. "No. No, I don't think that's right. I think she's just hurt and bleeding inside. Not blunted. Numbed. With time, the pain comes back. Thank goodness Shahvee is there for her. Otherwise, I'm sure she would be dead."

"She's found a way to get by. We'll make things easier for her if we can. But now to bed, love. There's a long trip ahead for us."

Prisa nodded, and the two made their way up the front steps and into the Bannered Mare, leaving behind the stillness of the night, the glitter of the stars, and the joy of a gleeful guard certain he could turn their whispers and embraces into at least four bottles of free mead, given a little bit of creative embroidery.


	9. Part Nine: Glenumbra Moors, 4E 212

**Part Nine: Glenumbra Moors, 4E 212**

There was almost nothing left from the time of the battle of Glenumbra Moors by the third century of the fourth era. The only exception was next to the battlefield itself, a large wooden door in a short section of surviving stone wall, with a purple sheen that glittered when the sunlight caught it at just the right angle, a sign that it was warded, magically preserved and sealed to keep whatever might still be inside from troubling the living. Prisa knew that this had been done by mages from the College of Winterhold, invited for that purpose nearly a century ago, when the power of earlier wards had begun to fade. She had read an account of it in the College library, as part of her fascination with everything to do with Glenumbra Moors. The cave had been the headquarters of Faolchu, the undead werewolf that had commanded the Alyssian armies, and had later been called back from the dead by Angof the Gravesinger to serve Molag Bal. Here had been his headquarters, where the Direnni forces had cornered and killed him, the first time he died. Few thought that anything of his spirit lingered, but no one was eager to take any chances. He had caused more than enough trouble already.

Prisa had suggested that they go to Glenumbra Moors first, before arriving at Pariah Abbey. Borrig had agreed at once; it was almost exactly half-way in the journey, an ideal point to take a day or two off and wander at will. The ghosts of the two armies that had lingered there for centuries after the battle were by now long gone, and about half a century earlier, the court at Wayrest had turned the entire area into a royal preserve. At the suggestion of the local Wyrd, the king had forbidden all hunting there, or any other activity that might damage or disturb the natural order. Instead of the restless souls of long-dead soldiers, the visitor might see spriggans wandering through the brush and long grass, not angered by the destruction of their beloved trees and thus no danger unless cornered or provoked, or find herself followed by a curious elk, confident enough of the area's ban on hunting to do a little idle people-watching if nothing more interesting was at hand.

The short passage to the battlefield proper was so overgrown now that walking down it was like disappearing into the maw of a great green monster, too vast and good-tempered to take note of their presence. Or perhaps a better way to describe it would be the aisle of a natural cathedral, Prisa thought as she and Borrig wandered along, leading their horses. _I wonder if this cathedral does marriages?_ she thought, and smiled to herself. _With spriggans as maids of honor and a bear to conduct the service. And my wretched family a thousand miles away, and wolves to eat them if they tried to interfere. But they wouldn't dare come here. They **hate** Nature._

-o-o-o-

As Prisa and Borrig moved further into the natural basin of Glenumbra Moors, the outside world seemed to slip away, as if the entrance were a portal rather than a path. They drifted back and forth over the battlefield for what remained of the afternoon, searching for some sign, a lingering ghost perhaps, or even a battle cry borne faintly on the wind, but there was nothing at all, only an omnipresent tranquility. When the sun sank below the rim of the surrounding hills and the light began to fade, they chose a spot to camp not far from the old door, raised a bit from the lowest parts of the basin, which remained damp. Behind them was a pile of anonymous, ivy-buried stone, perhaps a tower once; to the right they could see out over part of the battlefield. They pitched their tent there and built a small fire to cook some food.

"What have you been thinking about, love?"

Borrig had earlier noticed Prisa's silence, though it did not worry him. She was a sensitive, he knew that by now, and this had been a numinous place in the past, though it seemed to have settled down and become merely another tract of land with a history.

Prisa didn't answer at once. She gathered the eating utensils and set them to one side, gave Borrig a quick kiss, and then sat down in front of him, looking into the fire. Borrig put his arms around her from behind and she settled back into his arms and closed her eyes.

"There…." she whispered. "That's what the Dragonborn meant. Sitting next to me with your arms around me….it's not just a comfort. It's an anchor. This is where I belong, my home, what I have freely become and entered into. What I **_am_**. I will never leave. This is where we build, for all our time….for all time."

She closed her eyes again, and took each of Borrig's hands into one of hers. Then she moved his hands until they were cupping her breasts, and squeezed them, a little impatiently.

"I didn't think that the ride today was that tiring, love. Worn out already? Come on. I'm not being naughty - I mean, I'm not _just_ being naughty. I need your opinion."

Borrig only laughed and began to fondle her breasts with enthusiasm. He noticed at once that there wasn't anything but skin under her blouse. She gasped sharply when he squeezed her nipples, and caught both his hands again, slowing them to a halt.

"Now, I need your objective opinion," Prisa said with a giggle, still holding Borrig's hands. "Do they feel any different? Notice anything?"

"Let me get this straight," Borrig replied, laughing as well. "You want an objective opinion? After giving you a good feel? I think you've gone a little crazy, love. If I could be objective about _anything_ now, you should slap me in the face."

"No, seriously. Are they bigger? smaller?"

Borrig put on his mock-cogitation face, even though there were only the spriggans to appreciate it.

"Hmmm….firmer I think….maybe bigger, I don't know. Is that why you left your bra off?"

"You don't know? _Terribly_ wishy-washy, love. I know you haven't taken a measuring tape to me but you'd think…." She sat up a bit, grasped the hem of her blouse in both hands, pulled it off, and threw it in the general direction of the tent in one quick motion.

"There. Let's go visual. You've always got your eyes glued to them, bless you. Can you _see_ anything different?"

"Hmmm….." Borrig tried to give the question serious thought, since Prisa's persistence was a clear sign that something beyond teasing was involved. "Bigger, I'm sure. Yes. Bigger."

Prisa nodded. Then she swung around again to settle in Borrig's lap, both of them facing the fire, with his arms around her again, circling her just below her bare breasts. The night was absolutely still; nothing could be heard apart from the crackling of their fire and the occasional soft howl, almost a whisper, of a wolf far away. A thin haze, risen from the damp lowlands of the old battlefield, veiled the moons, blurring their outlines and softening their light.

"Love?" Prisa's voice was almost a whisper. Borrig gave her a little hug, but said nothing in reply.

"We have to talk. No. I have to talk. There are some things you ought to know."

Borrig hugged her again, and kissed her ear, but again said nothing.

"My family. It's complicated." She paused a moment. "My mother….you _must_ know that the Tharns have something of a reputation when it comes to the magical arts. Family specialties. Some of them not very nice. One of the reasons I came to Winterhold is that I wasn't meant for the dark side and wanted to walk more in the light. Did you notice that I don't study necromancy at the College?"

"Yes," Borrig answered. "I just assumed that you disliked it. It isn't the most cheerful of specialties to learn. Most people give it a wide berth."

"I do dislike it. Most of it, most of the time. At least now. But like all the dark arts, it tends to run in families, passed down privately. And one of those families is the Tharn. We've preserved reams of handwritten texts and spells, going back to old Abnar Tharn himself, and earlier. I began studying the dark arts when I was ten years old. I was twelve when I created my first flesh atronach. A couple of horses had been killed in an accident, and I used their flesh."

Prisa smiled to herself at the memory, but she also drew Borrig's arms around her to hold her a bit closer.

"It was a tiny thing, for an atronach, and I thought it was kind of cute. It was shy, too. It always tried to hide behind me if other people were there. Of course it wasn't very aggressive, and didn't live very long. Ones made from animal parts are always like that. But everyone thought I was some kind of genius for reading a spell out of an old book over a heap of dead flesh. Mother was _so_ happy. I was good at magic, always, and that was the only thing she ever liked about me. But I already knew that I wanted something different. Not so death-haunted. So I made a deal with the family, that if I qualified as a full-fledged necromancer by my eighteenth birthday, they would let me go to Winterhold to study other branches of magic."

She laughed and shook her head, and leaned back so that Borrig could kiss her.

"So, the reason I don't take the necromancy classes is that I could be teaching them myself. I'm _very_ good at it. Something that goes with the Tharn blood, I suppose. I qualified when I was seventeen, a year early. And mother was _so_ happy again. Happy because I could raise a skeleton or turn a ghost. I don't think she ever saw me as a daughter. Only as an apprentice. No, a tool. She's a _horrible_ person."

"I'm sure you won't misuse the art," Borrig said in response. "And the gods can turn anything to good, it's said."

"If we don't get in their way…."

Prisa's voice trailed off. She seemed on the verge of falling asleep. It became colder, and Borrig pulled a blanket from the tent to wrap around them both. He didn't want to move, not yet. It was as if the whole night, all the layers of darkness over Mundus, were wrapped around them like a gigantic blanket, everything slowly spiraling inward, drifting to the center marked by their campfire. Not a threatening feeling, Borrig realized. He had never been less fearful. Rather, a seamless connection between him and the beautiful woman asleep in his arms, and the circle after circle of the outside world that lay silent around them, asleep in a childlike trust that they two would play their proper part. He bent down and kissed Prisa on the top of the head. She was going to need a lot of protecting, he realized, and then remembered how carefully Shahvee had watched the Dragonborn, anticipating trouble, quick to act when it happened so that her unavoidable collapse ended in Shahvee's arms and not on the cold wooden floor. A servant of the servant of the gods. He had never thought he would be so important.

Prisa stirred, and then turned to Borrig for a sleepy kiss. "Dreaming…." she murmured in his ear. "About good things, love…."

Borrig kissed her back, first on the lips and then down her neck to her chest. Then he straightened up again, to ask a question that had been nagging at him as she slept.

"Prisa, love, why all the questions about your breasts a little while ago? They do seem bigger, but what does that have to do with your being a necromancer?"

Prisa giggled loudly. She shook her head.

"Oh, necromancy and tits have no known relevance to each other. That was a totally different topic, love. I got off track. But good news, anyway." She leaned forward, kissed him again, and then whispered into his ear.

"I missed my period. I think I'm pregnant. I _know_ I'm pregnant. I dreamed just now….I was at the court of Dibella, the Queen of Love, talking to one of her attendants. You wouldn't believe what the attendant wanted to know about you, the _details_….I think she was jealous, a little bit. More than a little bit. A _lot_. Anyway, we laughed together and she bent some of the rules, she said, to tell me that I was pregnant already, with twins, a boy and a girl. And that I would have another girl after that, and girl twins later, and perhaps more…._I don't dare guess at any limits on you two_, she said. _But five at least, all healthy_. _Keep showing your bare breasts to that Borrig of yours, and it might be ten_, she added."

Borrig grinned. "It's always nice to hear that the gods have confidence in your abilities. I hope they have the same level of trust in my magical talents and my sword arm. But we're going to be busy."

"So we should get to bed and get some sleep," Prisa replied, in a very decided tone of voice, scrambling up and tugging Borrig toward their tent. "Besides, Dibella's servant had one or two other suggestions, direct from the Queen of Love herself, she said. And the commands of the gods may not be delayed or disobeyed…."

-o-o-o-

Across the ancient battlefield, concealed in the bush on a rise in the land a couple of hundred meters away from Prisa and Borrig, a Dunmer by the name of Favis Gorleno watched the tiny, glittering star of the campfire as if he were a navigator and the fire were the North Star. It was on the verge of going out, which meant that his targets had finally gone to bed. He sighed with relief. Soon everything would be over and he would be able to go back to Skyrim to deliver the requested item, and from Skyrim, home. Good riddance. He hadn't looked forward to the job, there had been something indefinably weird about it from the beginning, but he was Guild-trained, theft was his profession, work was work, and he had parents and a sister to support. The pay was good, and he was in the employ of a fellow Dunmer, which made it a little easier to understand what was going on. But not much.

Competition between mages. Secret formulas. A unique and powerful artifact. It was like a tale from a second-rate storyteller in a country inn on a sleepy winter night, when no one was listening anyway. Favis shook his head again. But the assignment was simple enough. Steal the artifact, bring it to the client. No violence. _Absolutely_ no violence, the client had stressed. A snatch and run job, basically, though Favis hoped he had thought of a more subtle way to carry it out than that.

He examined a small glass vial that the client had given him. It would glow, she had told him, if the artifact was anywhere near. Favis guessed that like most people on a trip, his targets had put their most valuable objects at the back of their tent. Once he pinpointed the location with this magical doodad, he planned to silently slice open the canvas of the tent with a knife sharper than most razors, and remove the item quickly, safely, and almost unnoticeably. If the way they had been fooling around in the firelight was any clue, Favis guessed that once they were asleep, there would be virtually no chance they would awaken, even if he slipped and made a bit of noise. They wouldn't notice the theft until far too late. The perfect crime, though he wouldn't be able to boast about it afterward, he thought sourly. The client had insisted on absolute confidentiality.

He reached the foot of the small rise where Prisa and Borrig had set up their tent with no incident. Should he climb the face of the rise or go around? He hesitated for a moment.

A soft voice came from behind him.

"Out of your league. Sorry."

The muffled sound of a padded club, and Favis crumpled, unconscious. Two more dark figures emerged from the shadows to help carry him, and the small party set off into the night.

-o-o-o-

When Favis came back to the world, he found himself sitting in a wooden armchair with his hands tied in front of him and a blindfold over his eyes. He didn't seem to be bound to the chair, but with no sight and no use of his hands, he realized at once that he wasn't going far without the permission of his captors.

He decided to let them make the first move. Sure enough, one began speaking after a few moments of silence. It sounded like the same voice he had heard just before being knocked unconscious, though with so little material for comparison, he couldn't be certain.

"Our orders were to let you live," the voice said, calmly. "But we might have taken that 'live' in a much more literal and restricted sense if you had gone in heavily armed. You didn't. Excellent judgment on your part."

"I appreciate your praise," Favis replied. "But the client said no violence, and so no violence it was. I don't make a habit of bashing or stabbing people anyway. I'm Thieves' Guild, and as you must know, we like things to go off without a fuss."

Favis heard a soft laugh. "And so they did."

After a brief pause, the voice continued.

"You needn't bother worrying about what to tell us or what not to tell us. We know all the details already. We've been to your employer to give her a stern lecture on the lack of wisdom she showed in trying to steal from someone under our protection. I believe she got the point. She was also told not to complain about your failure, so this won't show up as discreditable to you in Guild records. As far as everyone is concerned now, the contract never existed."

"That's very considerate of you."

"A professional courtesy. We belong to sister organizations, after all, headed by the same person. And you would almost certainly have succeeded if it had not been for the chance that we were on guard. That's a good plan you had there, and a very nice knife. Have, rather. We're not about to steal your tools either."

Favis heard the muffled clink of coin in a purse hitting wood in front of him.

"We even took it upon ourselves to collect your fee from your former employer. Here it is. Now everyone, except your former employer, has what he or she wants. The incident is over, and you would be very wise never to refer to it again."

"I won't."

He felt someone grasp his bound wrists, and the sudden release of pressure that signified that his hands had been cut free.

"Count to 100, slowly, before you remove your blindfold and get up. If you do happen to catch a glimpse of any of us, we will be forced, with great regret, to kill you. So make that a slow count, if you please. And may we never meet again, at least as adversaries. Hail Sithis!"

Just to be sure, Favis counted to 1000. _Very_ slowly. Then he took the blindfold off. He was in a ramshackle building, quite small, and he could smell the sea. His tools, even his tent, were arrayed neatly on another table by the door, and the bag of money with his fee was in front of him. He collected the money and the tools, pushed open the door, and stepped outside. It was just before dawn, and the building was no more than an isolated shack fronting onto a beach. Favis looked around, and concluded he was probably near Deleyn's Mill, not too far away from Daggerfall. They'd certainly taken him a long way from where he started before releasing him. But for the Brotherhood, security always came first, he knew.

_It could have gone worse_, he thought. He should have obeyed his instincts in the first place, and turned down the job. _Live and learn_.


	10. Part Ten: Glenumbra Moors, 4E 212 (II)

**Part Ten: Glenumbra Moors, 4E 212 (II)**

The sun was already half-way to its zenith when Borrig and Prisa dragged themselves out of their tent, still sleepy, and began preparations for brunch. The most prominent feature of these preparations was a periodic collapse into each other's arms, not erotic, but…. celebratory, perhaps. The whole experience was like having a wonderful dream, and then waking up and realizing that everything in the dream and more was theirs in reality. Neither of them could remember any time in their previous lives that they had been even a fraction as happy as they were now.

Still, Borrig remained prey to worry. Encouraged by his new sense of responsibility as not only a partner and lover but a prospective parent, he periodically scanned the horizon for any sign of a dark cloud, only to have Prisa blow any and all worries away with a confident puff.

His chief source of concern was Prisa's family. His own, he knew that they could handle, given time. If he walked into his clan hall with twins in his arms and a beautiful Imperial at his side, the men would all start to bellow at him and glare at Prisa, he knew, but the women would fall over themselves to coo over the babies – twins would be particularly irresistible – and introduce themselves to their mother, and sooner rather than later, they would tell the men to sit down and shut up, or else. And in his clan, that was the sort of quarrel that the women always won. The Tharns, on the other hand….

Prisa was inclined to treat her mother as a minor problem, deflecting all concerns with a casual dismissal that left Borrig fretting. Prisa tried to reassure him.

"You just have to trust me in this. My family has to be told that they are not necessary to our future. They will imagine they're important, that they hold our fate in their hands, but… _I don't care any longer._ What they do, what they think, whether they even exist.

"My mother was going to try to trade me off like a piece of…. meat. No. That's too nice. She doesn't do nice. A _fuck toy_. She would have twisted my arm till it broke off to get me to open my legs for some impotent, insolent fart forty years older than me, just for a few months of political advantage. That's what she did to my two older sisters, and I was next in line. But Dibella gave me you, and damn it, I love you and I'm taking you. And our _real_ family has already begun. In less than a year, I'll have two more to love, and two more whom _you_ love, _two_ someones, both part you and part me."

"But will your mother try to get back at you?"

"Not if she knows what's good for her," Prisa replied in a steady, soft voice. She had a look on her face that Borrig had never seen before, even back when they were open enemies just arrived at the College and looking to do each other a mischief. A relentless, unforgiving gaze free of any sort of mercy or restraint. An animal look. Like a mother wolf protecting her cubs, Borrig thought.

"She was the one who insisted on making me into a damned fine necromancer," Prisa continued after a momentary pause. "Never thought I might turn it on her, I suppose. I was always the quiet, meek one. But she knows what I can do if I have to. She knows that I'm better at necromancy, and all the Dark Arts, than she ever was. I won't hurt her any more than necessary, not at all if it isn't necessary, but if she touches you or our children, I swear I'll rip her skin off and pack her in a hogshead of salt. She doesn't know for sure about what I've done already…but she suspects. Let it be a lesson to her. Leave us alone or else. Is it really that much to ask?"

"What you've done already?" Borrig knew it might be a bad question to ask, but he also knew that Prisa wouldn't find peace until she had come to terms with all of her past.

Prisa nodded. Then her eyes filled with tears. She reached out and hugged Borrig to her so violently that it was painful, digging her fingernails into his back, grinding herself against him. It wasn't sexual in the least this time, Borrig realized. Prisa just needed to reassure herself, body and mind, that he was here and he accepted her, and so he returned the embrace with equal force. Still holding him tightly, she whispered into his ear.

"My eldest sister's husband… political marriage, Mother half forced and half lied my sister into it… told her it was for show only… she didn't want him, but instead of ignoring her, the way Mother had sworn he would, he raped her. She'd been a virgin, of course. Beat her until she was half unconscious and then had a couple of his servants hold her down so that he could tear off her clothes and screw her. Night after night. Sometimes he had the servants screw her while he watched and cheered them on. He did that when he couldn't get it up. Listening to her crying and screaming, and watching the servants get rough with her, excited him, and then he could do her himself. The worse they hurt her, the more they humiliated her, the more excited he got.

"She told me. All of it. She didn't dare tell anyone else. She was crying and crying, and she's my _sister_, my _big_ sister, the one who was more like a mother to me when I was a child than my own horrible mother _ever_ was… And now she wanted to kill herself. She begged me to get her some poison. I told her no, I would think of something else, something that would make everything right for her again….So I killed him."

Borrig felt Prisa shudder, but her voice remained calm.

"The only person I've ever killed, really, and I killed him the ugliest way I knew. Mother doesn't really believe that I did it, because she still doesn't realize I _could_ do things like that so early. I was barely fifteen when all this happened. But she wonders. Suspects. Fears. That's good."

Borrig turned to brush Prisa's hair off her face and kissed her. "If taking revenge for a family member's mistreatment were a sin, then nine out of ten of my ancestors would be in the Ashpits," he said. "You did what you had to do to protect your sister. My family would never object. Quite the reverse. They'd see you as a hero, especially since you had to do it when you were so young, and all alone."

"But I went too far….I was fifteen, I'd never even _thought_ of physically harming any one of the Ten Races before, but after my sister told me what her husband was doing to her, I was so angry that I couldn't think straight. I just wanted to make him scream, burn him alive, dissolve him in acid, something gruesome and painful, the more gruesome, the more painful, the better.

"And it was then that I happened to come across one of Abnur Tharn's old notebooks, and in it was this spell. But Abnur had written under it that he'd never cast this spell, and he never would; he only recorded it for reference. _Abnur Tharn_, the most ruthless old devil who ever lived – and even _he_ thought this spell was too disgusting to use. But that was like a signal for me to use it. I should have thought more clearly, but I knew my sister was getting raped almost every night. And I remembered that her husband's first wife had died of an illness, or so he had said. Died of mistreatment, I'm sure. Raped to death, or something close to that.

"The spell was called Sanguine's Inferno. It was cast on a powder, and the powder didn't have any effect at all on women, ever, or on men _unless_ it came into contact with their sex organs. But if a man did get some there, even a tiny amount…. after a day or two, your equipment and the whole area would become inflamed and incredibly sensitive, so that you couldn't piss or shit without howling in agony. You could reverse the effects of the spell then, if you knew what you were doing, but that was the last chance you had. After a week or ten days more, everything down there would begin to go rotten, and stink horribly, and become full of huge maggots, and the maggots would spread up into your guts as well, burrow through your butthole and spread all through your body, and eat your internal organs until you died. But when you died, they would all instantly disappear, since they were projections, brought there by the spell, fetches from some horrid corner of Oblivion, not real maggots. That was why no doctor could treat them successfully….

"The spell included instructions on making the death more or less painful, more or less prolonged. And may all the gods forgive me this, but I was so angry that I ensorcelled the powder as powerfully as I could, so that the torture would last weeks, and be horrible enough to drive him mad. I took the powder to my sister. I didn't tell her what it did. I just told her to dust it between her legs, and if he or the servants raped her again, it would be the last time. She did, and of course, they did too. And it _was_ the last time.

"My sister told me after it was over that her husband died a nightmare death. It took more than a month for him to expire. He spent the last week insane, thrashing about in agony as if he were being slowly roasted alive, screaming night and day, and he looked so awful and stank so badly that no one could bear to be with him. At the very end, when the maggots were coming out of his eye sockets and he'd gone blind, they just slammed the door of his chamber, locked it tight, and ignored the noises from behind. So he died alone in the dark, out of his mind, rotting and stinking and screaming in a puddle of his own excrement. His two servants had started to rot as well, but they'd both had the common sense to kill themselves when it got to that point. He tried to hang on, the fool, and he was tormented past all endurance before the Dread Lord came.

"When my sister told me what had happened…. I laughed. _Exactly what the bastard deserved_, I thought. But even then I knew something wasn't right. She thanked me for freeing her from her nightmare, but my sister wasn't happy. She was dazed with horror. She didn't blame me, but she told me that she could still hear her husband's screams. So I went back home and burned the page of the old notebook that contained the spell. I suppose I'm the only person who knows it now, and it will die with me.

"And my sister…she was safe from him then, but the strain of everything that had happened was too much for her. She couldn't handle it, and I guess she just gave up. She became simple-minded, confused about the most common things. Living in a fog. She's a nun serving Arkay now, praying for the dead. I told her abbot what had happened, and they have been very gentle with her. I visit her now and then, when I'm in the Imperial City. She still knows me, and loves me. She doesn't remember anything that happened in her marriage, though, only old incidents from our childhood together. I suppose that's due to the mercy of the gods. She's happy again, or at least content. But I'll never know whether it was her husband who broke her mind, or whether it was my clumsy attempt to get revenge for what he was doing to her that pushed her over the edge."

"That's the wrong question, love," Borrig said, quickly and firmly. Prisa looked up, into his eyes. "There's someone more important than even her husband."

"The right question is _who started all this_, and the person who started it was your mother. She was the one who forced this union on your elder sister, and made it impossible for you not to act. Perhaps you did go too far. But you wouldn't have gone anywhere at all without the marriage in the first place. And your mother must have known what sort of a person her daughter's prospective husband was. It was her business to know, even if it meant digging out some of the man's former servants and bribing the truth out of them. Without your mother, nothing would have happened at all."

Prisa nodded, but made no reply.

"That's why I worry, love," Borrig continued. "She would do something like that to her own daughter….even if she isn't a monster of wickedness, she's dangerously selfish and careless. What happened to your second sister, by the way? You said your mother married her off as well. Did she have better luck?"

Prisa laughed, "She did. For my mother, the worst possible outcome….My second sister's husband may have been an old fart on the outside, but on the inside, he was a pushover. After a bit of cautious tiptoeing around each other, they found out that they really did have a lot in common, and eventually they fell in love with each other, despite the difference in age. He does anything my sister wants; thank goodness she's not the greedy sort. And he got so lost in indulging her and enjoying his good fortune so late in life that at her suggestion, he withdrew from the political world and court life entirely and became something of a patron of the arts instead. That meant the entire marriage became useless in my mother's eyes, since he was no longer active in politics and she didn't care what painter or composer got his patronage. She was furious; I tried not to laugh. But even before we turned to each other, I had no intention of gambling on having the same kind of luck."

She changed the topic suddenly. "Better not stay here all day. We were delayed enough with that extra time in Whiterun, more than a week in the end, but since we got so much done…." She patted her stomach, no outward sign yet, of course, of her condition. "….I don't regret it. But if we don't move on, we'll annoy our escort."

It took only half an hour to pack up their tent and distribute the load between their two horses. Borrig had already noticed, to his relief, that for a city girl Prisa was very good with animals and an excellent horsewoman. One less thing she could be mocked for by his family, he thought. Most of them had a poor opinion of the overprotected and coddled residents of the Imperial City, and Prisa's obvious expertise and comfort when dealing with horses would go a long way toward overcoming it.

"Who taught you to ride, love?" he asked, as they mounted their horses and began to walk them down along the path leading away from the battlefield, now so silent in the early spring sunshine.

"Family servants," Prisa replied. "Some of them could almost read an animal's mind, and they taught me a few tricks to keep horses from getting restless. One of the older women had even been with the Wyrd in her younger days, before marrying and coming to the city. I loved to listen to her talk – so different from my ever-scheming mother – and I learned a lot from her that doesn't fit into a regular curriculum, even one for a magician…."

The two meandered back over the battlefield one last time, just in case, but there was nothing there except the occasional animal or bird, and the morning mist curling from the lowest and most boggy sections. It promised to be another superb spring day, with scarcely a cloud in the sky. Passing through the opening in the hills that ringed the battlefield, they turned their horses onto the road to the north, moving a little faster now, and trotted off under the mid-morning sun. _Next stop Pariah Abbey_, Prisa thought. _Another place with a history. May the peace and acceptance we found here be present there as well_.


End file.
